Gyeongbuk Province Presents Guidelines for Cooperative Regulatory Innovation Between Central and Local Governments

Focused Discovery of Cluster Regulations and On-site Regulations

Formation and Operation of Public-Private Regulatory Innovation TF Team

Gyeongbuk Provincial Government Office.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Gwiyeol] Lee Cheol-woo, Governor of Gyeongbuk Province, frequently mentions the regulatory burdens during company site visits and executive meetings, stating, “A single line of government legislation or one regulation can be a matter of life and death for a company,” and adds, “Regulatory innovation is a matter of public livelihood and the economy. We must revive public livelihood and the economy through high-quality jobs created by regulatory innovation, not forced jobs made with money.”

He also emphasizes, “Regulatory innovation requires constant cooperation between local and central governments. Central and local governments must unite to swiftly and boldly pursue regulatory innovation, even for minor regulations, so that companies and residents can feel the results of regulatory innovation on the ground by breaking away from existing practices.”

Accordingly, on the 5th, the Provincial Office announced at a meeting of regulatory innovation stakeholders held in the Planning and Coordination Office that it will present three roadmaps for win-win regulatory innovation between central and local governments: ▲ resolving bulky central regulations ▲ resolving on-site regulations ▲ strengthening regulatory innovation capabilities, and plans to actively discover and improve new regulations.

To revitalize the regional economy, the province plans to actively discover and improve bulky central regulations.

To promote the relocation of companies to local areas, it plans to discover and improve industrial complex-related regulations such as restrictions on the installation area of ancillary facilities like parking lots, parks, and water supply, as well as sales facilities.

To reduce the ‘sandbags (regulations)’ that hinder corporate growth, it will discover and improve regulations related to factory expansion, such as floor area ratio and building coverage ratio limits when expanding buildings, and mandatory employment of workplace managers.

Furthermore, it will continue to discover tasks for local government delegation, such as improving agricultural and fishery product distribution facilities and authority for maintenance orders, which can be differentiated according to local conditions.

Urgent and complex issues will be resolved by inviting officials from the Prime Minister’s Office, Ministry of the Interior and Safety, and related ministries to site visits and local field discussion meetings.

The province plans to form and operate a public-private regulatory innovation TF team, led by the Planning and Coordination Office chief and including local researchers and private experts, to support and energize the discovery and improvement of these regulatory innovation tasks.

The public-private joint TF team is differentiated from the existing internal administrative task forces by the participation of a ‘private regulatory expert group.’

This aims to establish regulatory innovation in local areas through win-win cooperation between local and central governments and to carry out various activities to attract companies to local areas and resolve difficulties in corporate activities.

Additionally, the promotion team plans to discover and improve customized on-site regulations according to the realities and characteristics of Gyeongbuk.

First, it plans to discover and improve shadow regulations such as excessive fines for road occupancy fees and unreasonable standards applied when assessing factory land prices.

It also plans to discover behavioral regulations caused by passive administration by public officials, such as excessive time taken from permit application to approval.

Hwang Myeong-seok, Chief of the Planning and Coordination Office, stated, “To achieve visible results, we will improve city and county evaluation indicators focused on outcomes such as supporting the economic activities of local companies, and induce active regulatory innovation through a regulatory improvement idea contest. In October, we will hold meetings involving various stakeholders, including the Office for Government Policy Coordination and experts, at local sites to check the implementation status of regulatory innovation and produce tangible results.”

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