Gwangju Nam-gu, Significant Increase in Foreigners' Complaints 'Service Enhancement'

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Jin-hyung] Nam-gu, Gwangju Metropolitan City, has decided to strengthen civil petition interpretation services to alleviate inconveniences for foreign civil petitioners as the number of foreign civil petition applications, such as changes in residence, has significantly increased.

According to the 2021 foreign civil petition application status data from Nam-gu Office on the 2nd, the number of foreign-related civil petition applications, including changes in residence, at the comprehensive civil petition office last year was recorded as 842 cases.

The purpose of the civil petition applications was highest for foreigner registration certificate issuance with 449 cases, followed by 250 cases of residence changes and 143 cases of certificate issuance for overseas Korean residents' address reporting.

Compared to 600 foreign civil petition applications in 2020, the previous year, there was an increase of 242 cases (growth rate of 40.3%), indicating a significant rise in demand for foreign-related civil petitions.

Nam-gu expects foreign-related civil petition work to continue increasing this year, so it plans to recruit additional interpreter public officials and strengthen cooperation with the Nam-gu Healthy Family and Multicultural Family Support Center to enhance services in other foreign languages as well.

First, in line with the continuous increase of multicultural families and foreigners, the foreign civil petition interpretation service, which was selected as an excellent government innovation case last year, will be expanded.

Currently, Nam-gu operates with four interpreter public officials proficient in Chinese and English, and this year plans to recruit Japanese interpreter public officials to maximize foreign civil petition administrative services.

Additionally, in collaboration with the Nam-gu Healthy Family and Multicultural Family Support Center, language services in several countries such as Chinese, Vietnamese, and Russian will be supported, and AI interpretation and translation devices deployed in the comprehensive civil petition office will be utilized to support the explosively increasing foreign civil petition demand.

A Nam-gu official stated, “We will continuously show innovation to ensure smooth administrative services for foreigners visiting the comprehensive civil petition office.”

Meanwhile, as of the end of 2021, the number of foreigners residing in the district was 1,457, with 578 males and 879 females identified by gender.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.