Incheon City Strives to Secure '6 Trillion Won National Budget' for 2 Consecutive Years... Government-Party Council on 7th-8th

As the National Assembly's review of next year's government budget bill intensifies, Incheon City is joining forces with both ruling and opposition parties to secure more than 6 trillion won in national funds for the second consecutive year.

The city plans to hold consecutive party-government meetings on the 7th and 8th with the Incheon branches of the People Power Party and the Democratic Party to actively request cooperation for securing the 2024 national budget and addressing pending projects. The meetings will be attended by Mayor Yoo Jeong-bok, Bae Jun-young (People Power), Kim Gyo-heung (Democratic) party branch chairpersons, and district party chairpersons.

The national subsidies for Incheon City reflected in the 2024 government budget bill amount to 5.4445 trillion won. This exceeds the city's initial target of 5 trillion won for next year's national subsidies and represents an increase of 379.4 billion won (7.5%) compared to this year's secured amount of 5.0651 trillion won. Including the provisional general allocation tax of 860 billion won, it is expected that the city will secure '6 trillion won in national funds' for the second consecutive year.

However, as the government has significantly reduced the budget growth rate under the sound fiscal policy, some national projects have been either fully cut or reduced, prompting the local political circles to request additional national funds. These include a total of 10 projects amounting to 70.3 billion won, such as ▲Improvement of congestion roads from Gongdan Overpass to Seo Incheon IC (18.9 billion won) ▲Increase in residential living support funds for the West Sea 5 Islands (9.6 billion won) ▲Construction of Incheon Infectious Disease Specialized Hospital (1.1 billion won) ▲Incheon Landing Operation Commemorative Week events (2 billion won) ▲Establishment of integrated wireless network for Incheon Lines 1 and 2 (9.7 billion won) ▲Land acquisition costs for Camp Market park road (11.8 billion won) ▲Advanced Traffic Management System (ITS) construction (2.2 billion won), among others.

An Incheon City official stated, "Prior to the party-government meetings, Mayor Yoo Jeong-bok personally visited central government ministries such as the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Ministry of the Interior and Safety to actively request budget support for next year," adding, "We will do our utmost to secure national funds so that major projects yield visible and tangible results."

Incheon City Hall

Meanwhile, at the party-government meetings, Incheon City plans to explain six major pending projects, including the 'promotion of a future-oriented Incheon-type administrative system reform' and 'free tolls on the Gyeongin Expressway,' and ask for political cooperation.

The Incheon-type administrative system reform (from '2 districts and 8 wards' to '2 districts and 9 wards') involves merging Jung-gu inland and Dong-gu to create a new Jemulpo-gu and dividing Seo-gu into Seo-gu and Geomdan-gu based on the Ara Waterway. The Ministry of the Interior and Safety announced the related bill for legislative notice last September. Also, the Gyeongin Expressway, which marks its 55th anniversary this year, had cumulative toll revenue of 1.4234 trillion won as of 2020, far exceeding the total maintenance and management costs of 669.4 billion won and construction investment costs of 299.4 billion won. Incheon has had a movement to abolish tolls on the Gyeongin Expressway for over 20 years.

In addition, Incheon City plans to propose amendments to relevant laws to ensure that the relocation of military units within the urban area is not subject to the total limit on lifting development restriction zones. To facilitate the smooth implementation of presidential pledges, the city will emphasize the need to designate additional economic free zones in areas such as Incheon Inner Port, Sudokwon Landfill Site, southern Ganghwa, and Songdo International City.

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