Chungnam Accelerates Efforts to Host Korea Military Academy... Establishment of Promotion Committee and Nationwide Public Forum

[Asia Economy (Hongseong) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] Chungnam Province is accelerating efforts to attract the Korea Military Academy to Nonsan and Gyeryong.

According to the province on the 6th, the "Chungnam-wide Promotion Committee for Attracting the Korea Military Academy (hereafter Promotion Committee)" held its launching ceremony the day before and officially began its activities.

The Promotion Committee is composed of 491 members from civic groups, political circles, academia, and residents. The standing chairpersons are retired Army General Park Chan-joo and Lee Kyung-yong, chairman of the Chungnam Saemaeul Association, with 14 co-chairpersons including Cha Ho-yeol, chairman of Rotary International District 3620.

The Promotion Committee will serve as the control tower in the process of attracting the Korea Military Academy to Chungnam and will unite the capabilities of 2.2 million residents.

It also plans to carry out comprehensive activities targeting the government and the National Assembly to ensure that the relocation of the Korea Military Academy, one of the presidential pledges, is implemented as soon as possible.

As the first step in this role, the Promotion Committee plans to hold a nationwide public forum at the National Assembly next month to promote the relocation of the Korea Military Academy to Chungnam to the government, National Assembly, and the Presidential Office.

The province believes that the recent public opinion poll showing that about half of respondents have a "positive" stance on the relocation of the Korea Military Academy will also support Chungnam’s efforts to attract the academy.

According to the province, Realmeter, a professional polling firm, conducted a survey from the 23rd to 24th of last month targeting 1,000 adult men and women nationwide regarding the "relocation of the Korea Military Academy to Nonsan and Gyeryong in Chungnam and the establishment of a defense and security cluster."

As a result, 55.7% of all respondents answered that relocating the Korea Military Academy, currently located in Seoul, to a provincial area would contribute to national balanced development. Conversely, 34.6% responded that it would not help, and 9.6% said they did not know.

In particular, 47.8% of all respondents said they "know" that the Presidential Transition Committee promised to relocate the Korea Military Academy to Nonsan and Gyeryong, and 51.2% of respondents believed that relocating the academy to Nonsan and Gyeryong would create synergy effects with adjacent defense industry infrastructure such as the Defense University.

Regarding this, Kim Tae-heum, Governor of Chungnam Province, emphasized, "Currently, in Chungnam, the Army Training Center and Defense University are established in Nonsan, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff are located in Gyeryong. Especially, about 30 defense-related institutions such as the Agency for Defense Development and the Korea Aerospace Research Institute are located in the neighboring area (Daejeon), which will be a driving force to enhance synergy effects when the Korea Military Academy relocates to Chungnam."

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