Yoo Jeong-bok "Cannot Accept APEC Host City Selection Result"... Points Out Violation of Application Criteria

"Claim of 'Gyeongju City Changing Content After Submission of Hosting Application'
Urging the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for a Careful and Wise Decision"

As the host city for the 2025 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit was virtually decided to be Gyeongju, Gyeongsangbuk-do, Incheon City expressed its intention to contest the decision, claiming that the selection of a city that violated the application guidelines undermined fairness.

On the 21st, Incheon Mayor Yoo Jeong-bok held a press conference at Incheon City Hall and asserted, "The APEC Host City Selection Committee under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' decision to select Gyeongju as the host city yesterday is a clear violation of the application criteria."

Incheon Mayor Yoo Jeong-bok held a press conference on the 21st to point out the issues regarding the fact that Gyeongju City has been virtually decided as the host city for the '2025 APEC Summit.'
[Photo by Incheon City]

Mayor Yoo stated, "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs' application announcement clearly states that 'the bid application cannot be changed after the application deadline (April 19),' but Gyeongju changed the layout of the main conference venues differently from the original bid application and arbitrarily expanded the hosting area beyond Gyeongsangbuk-do to other cities and provinces," adding, "This is a clear violation of the application criteria, and the fairness is questionable as the vote proceeded without thorough and objective review."

He also pointed out that Gyeongju has only two 5-star hotels with two presidential suites for the 21 member countries' leaders to stay in, and that Woljeonggyo, proposed as the banquet hall, is a narrow wooden structure, making it utterly unsuitable to accommodate up to about 1,000 people.

Mayor Yoo said, "The purpose of forming a committee to select the host city is to coldly evaluate whether the city can successfully hold a large-scale international event like the APEC Summit without any margin of error," and added, "Choosing Gyeongju, valuing the opportunity to promote traditional cultural heritage to the world, over Incheon, which overwhelmingly excels in all application criteria, is neither common sense nor fair."

He continued, "It is like disqualifying a perfect scorer on the college entrance exam, a truly bad decision," and said, "I will soon meet with the Minister of Foreign Affairs to urge a careful and wise decision."

The APEC Summit is an annual meeting attended by leaders and ministers from 21 Asia-Pacific countries, with over 6,000 participants. It will be held domestically next November for the first time in 20 years since it was hosted in Busan in 2005.

The APEC Host City Selection Committee under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs conducted on-site inspections last month of the three candidate cities?Incheon, Gyeongju, and Jeju?that applied to host APEC, and held a meeting on the 20th to decide to recommend Gyeongju as the host city.

The committee stated that Gyeongju received high evaluations in terms of national and regional development contributions and cultural tourism resources. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is expected to hold an APEC Summit Preparatory Committee meeting soon to finalize Gyeongju as the host city.

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