Metropolitan Railway Projects Including GTX Exempted from Central Investment Review... Timeline Shortened by Over Four Months

Government Accepts Gyeonggi's Proposal: Local Finance Act Enforcement Decree Amended
Projects with Over 70% National Funding Now Exempt
Project Timelines Expected to Be Shortened by at Least 4?5 Months

The government has accepted Gyeonggi Province's proposal that the current administrative procedure-requiring an additional investment review for projects that have already passed the preliminary feasibility study simply because they include local government funding-is unreasonable. As a result, the promotion of metropolitan railway projects within Gyeonggi Province, including the Greater Seoul Metropolitan Express Railway (GTX), is expected to accelerate.

According to Gyeonggi Province on January 16, an amendment to the Local Finance Act Enforcement Decree, which exempts projects receiving more than 70% of their total project costs from the national government from investment reviews, has been in effect since January 7.

With this amendment, the administrative process that previously required a central investment review and budget allocation after the preliminary feasibility study will now move directly from the feasibility study to budget allocation, potentially shortening the project timeline by at least four to five months.

Under the current system, metropolitan railway projects implemented by the national government are subject to a feasibility assessment through a preliminary feasibility study in accordance with the National Finance Act.

The problem arises because, under the Metropolitan Transportation Act, metropolitan railway projects led by the national government with more than 70% of funding from the central government still require mandatory local government funding and, consequently, must undergo an investment review under the Local Finance Act.

This means that even if a metropolitan railway project has already been validated through a preliminary feasibility study, it is subjected to a redundant review simply because it involves local government funding.

In fact, the recently opened GTX-A line (Samsung-Dongtan) underwent two investment reviews under the Local Finance Act due to such institutional reasons. The reviews alone took four months for the first round and five months for the second, and including the time spent preparing materials and waiting for the review schedule, the process took more than a year.

Since September 2023, Gyeonggi Province has requested the government to amend the Local Finance Act five times to address these institutional inefficiencies. As a result, at the 7th Central-Local Government Cooperation Meeting in July last year, a plan to rationalize the local finance investment review system was approved, leading to the legislative amendment in January this year.

Kim Kibum, Director of the Railway, Port, and Logistics Bureau of Gyeonggi Province, stated, "With this amendment, the administrative procedures for nationally led metropolitan railway projects will be streamlined not only in Gyeonggi Province but also in metropolitan local governments nationwide. We will continue to improve unreasonable regulations from the perspective of our residents."

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