Park Wan-su, Governor-elect of Gyeongnam Province, "Balanced National Development Possible Only by Transferring Central Government Authority to Local Governments"

Need for Regional Transfer of Finance, Personnel, Technology, and Information

Tax Distribution Ratio: National Tax 6 to Local Tax 4 or Less

Park Wan-su, Governor-elect of Gyeongnam Province (front row, far left), participated in the 'Yoon Seok-yeol Government and Regional Innovation' conference and spoke about national balanced development measures.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Lee Se-ryeong] “To achieve national balanced development, decentralization of power from the central government to local governments must be a prerequisite.”

Park Wan-su, the governor-elect of Gyeongnam Province, argued that the central government’s authority and information should be significantly transferred to local governments.

Park attended the ‘Yoon Suk-yeol Government and Regional Innovation’ conference hosted by the Autonomy and Decentralization Committee and the Local Autonomy Society at the 100th Anniversary Hall of the University of Seoul on the 22nd.

During the conference, in the session titled ‘Regional Crisis and New Government’s Regional Policy,’ he said, “If the central government’s finances, authority, personnel, technology, and information are not transferred to local governments, the regional imbalance of the past 20 years will inevitably be repeated.”

He diagnosed, “Although nearly 30 years have passed since the introduction of local autonomy up to the 8th elected local government, decentralization remains incomplete, and national balanced development has been distorted, worsening the imbalance.”

The governor-elect emphasized, “Over the past 15 years of pursuing national balanced development policies, the government has invested 380 trillion won in low birthrate measures and 114 trillion won in regional balanced development, but the result has been a population decline and regional extinction crisis in local areas.”

He explained that the metropolitan area, which accounts for only 12% of the country’s area, is home to half of the entire population of South Korea and about 53% of the youth population, and while the metropolitan population increased from about 20 million in 1995 to 26 million, the non-metropolitan population increased by only 780,000.

Park Wan-su proposed the following measures to overcome this: ▲ transferring the duties of special administrative agencies located in local areas to cities and provinces when they overlap ▲ significantly transferring national affairs, budgets, personnel, and authority of the central government to local governments ▲ preparing bold performance-based compensation plans.

He said, “The tax system should be reformed from the current national tax to local tax distribution ratio of 8:2 to an actual fiscal execution ratio of 6:4 or less,” and “the current local distribution ratio of value-added tax should be increased from 5% to over 20%, and the distribution ratio of corporate and income tax should be raised from 10% to over 20%.”

He continued, “If the distribution of tax bases and the corresponding authority and responsibility are clarified, it will become an opportunity to lead national balanced development not only between the metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas but across the country.”

On the same day, Park Wan-su presented major issues for Gyeongnam Province’s administration, including bold tax reductions and regulatory special measures, early groundbreaking of the Aerospace Administration, and the reduction of toll fees on the Geoga Bridge, requesting the government’s attention and support.

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