Gyeongnam Province Eliminates Customs, Repetition, and Inefficiency... Abolishes 12 Affiliated Centers

Gyeongnam Provincial Government. / Photo by Se-ryeong Lee ryeong@

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Lee Seryeong] Gyeongsangnam-do has decided to close 12 out of 99 centers within the province.

Centers are public-private intermediary support organizations that operate through private consignment, public consignment, or subsidy support from the province and execute related projects.

According to the province, each center has promoted major provincial projects by utilizing private and public resources and expertise.

Before July 2018, there were 73 centers, but 26 were newly established over four years, and by 2022, 99 centers were operating with a total budget of 48.5 billion KRW, including project costs, operating expenses, and personnel expenses.

Gyeongnam Province announced on the 17th that it has undertaken a comprehensive review of the centers under its jurisdiction to strengthen responsible administration of public affairs and improve the efficiency of center operations.

The focus was on preemptively blocking factors that hinder operational efficiency, such as performing unnecessary or non-urgent functions and long-term consignment practices, and enhancing effectiveness through budget restructuring based on comprehensive analysis of project costs.

The province explained that in October, heads of the relevant departments and bureaus directly visited the operation sites of the centers and conducted a full-scale reexamination of whether each center should be maintained from the ground up.

The heads of the relevant departments and bureaus examined ▲ centers with poor performance or inefficient and repetitive operations ▲ centers whose functions have declined or shrunk due to changes in administrative demand or are operated similarly or redundantly ▲ centers with excessively allocated project costs or significant budget waste.

As a result of the reexamination, out of the total 99 centers, 8 centers including the Social Economy Integrated Support Center, the Inter-Korean Exchange and Cooperation Research Center, and the Artists Welfare Center will be closed or have their projects completed.

Four centers, such as the Metropolitan Women’s New Employment Center and the Women’s New Employment Center, will be merged into the Gyeongnam Women’s New Employment Center.

Following the closure of centers, existing projects will be linked or replaced with other projects or converted into subsidiary projects.

Additionally, by restructuring unnecessary and non-urgent expenditure budgets, the project budget was significantly reduced, and the 2023 center operation budget was set at 42.6 billion KRW, a decrease of 5.9 billion KRW compared to 2022.

Ha Jongmok, Director of Planning and Coordination Office, said, “We have undertaken this reorganization to prevent unnecessary budget waste and strengthen responsible administration of public affairs by reorganizing centers that have been operated habitually, repetitively, and inefficiently, thereby improving the quality of administrative services to the public. We will continue to steadily reorganize and establish comprehensive management plans annually to maximize policy effectiveness.”

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