Mokpo City Launches Foundation for Private-Led Integration of Mokpo and Sinan

Joint Research Service Focused on Integration of Culture and Tourism

In December of last year, the Buhung-dong Residents' Autonomy Committee and the Heuksan-myeon Residents' Autonomy Committee of Sinan-gun established a sisterhood alliance.
[Photo by Mokpo City]

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Seo Young-seo] Mokpo City in Jeonnam is gearing up to establish a foundation for integration with Sinan County.

According to the city on the 11th, immediately after the launch of the 8th local government last year, to promote regional development through co-growth in the southwestern region and to attract the long-awaited Mokpo University College of Medicine, the city established and operated the Southwestern Region Integrated Growth Promotion Team in July last year, securing focus and expertise on integration.

Learning from past failures of integration in the Muan Peninsula due to lack of public consensus, the city’s policy is to avoid unilateral government-led initiatives and to promote integration with Sinan County based on the fundamental principle of voluntary consensus formation by the private sector.

From this perspective, private exchanges such as sisterhood ties between self-sustaining organizations, kimchi-making events, and campaigns to purchase agricultural and marine products have been actively carried out since the second half of last year.

Mokpo City is also fully supporting Sinan County’s current projects, including the bid to host the Tidal Flat World Natural Heritage Conservation Headquarters, and is strengthening cooperative systems administratively.

This year, the city plans to establish effective strategies for integration while supporting efforts to form a private-sector-led consensus on integration, such as expanding sisterhood social organizations and providing administrative and financial support to the Mokpo-Sinan Integration Promotion Committee.

To this end, Mokpo City and Sinan County will jointly commission a study on the effects of integration to review preconditions and development plans for integration preparation, disadvantages arising from integration, and develop legal amendments to establish an administrative and institutional foundation for integration.

In particular, before administrative integration, the city plans to focus on forming a cultural and tourism community with Sinan County through measures such as applying equal fees to major tourist attractions in Mokpo City and Sinan County, jointly developing tourism products, holding visiting municipal symphony orchestra concerts, and inviting each other to major festivals and events.

Park Hong-ryul, Mayor of Mokpo City, stated, “The risk of local extinction due to population decline and aging is even being discussed,” and added, “We will concentrate our capabilities on integration, which will serve as a stepping stone to overcome the crisis of local extinction and achieve a new leap forward.”

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