Gyeongbuk Ranks First Among 17 Metropolitan Governments in National Evaluation of Pollution-Emitting Business Management; Gimcheon Tops Local Governments

On November 4, Gyeongbuk Provincial Government announced that it had ranked first nationwide among metropolitan governments in the “2025 (2024 Performance) National Evaluation of Environmental Management at Pollution-Emitting Businesses,” organized by the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment.

The Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment conducts a comprehensive annual evaluation of 17 metropolitan governments and 226 local governments nationwide, assessing their inspections and management performance regarding pollution-emitting businesses. The goal is to encourage voluntary environmental management and strengthen the capabilities of local governments.

Gyeongbuk Provincial Government Office

In this year’s evaluation, Gyeongbuk Province not only secured the top spot among metropolitan governments, but also achieved high marks in the local government category: Gimcheon City ranked first, Chilgok and Uljin Counties ranked third, Uiseong, Cheongsong, and Goryeong Counties ranked fourth, and Gyeongju City ranked fifth, demonstrating strong overall performance.

The Ministry determined the rankings of metropolitan and local governments (grouped into five categories) based on improvement scores calculated from last year’s data, including inspection rates of pollution-emitting businesses, violation (action) rates, pollution testing rates, prosecution rates, and completion rates of monitoring personnel training.

Gyeongbuk Province, recognized for excellence in all evaluation criteria and ranked first among the 17 metropolitan governments, managed a total of 3,514 pollution-emitting businesses last year. Of these, 210 violations were detected at 172 businesses under the province’s jurisdiction.

For the detected violations, the province took the following actions: 31 cases were prosecuted, 20 businesses were ordered to suspend operations, 172 received warnings, 20 were given improvement orders, and fines totaling 65 million KRW were imposed.

Gyeongbuk Province is committed not only to routine inspections of pollution-emitting businesses, but also to proactive accident prevention. The province continues to conduct special intensive inspections of high-priority businesses, regular inspections in the first and second half of the year, special monitoring during vulnerable periods (such as the rainy season, summer, major holidays, and periods of high fine dust), quarterly inter-agency meetings in each city and county, and joint inspections with civic groups to ensure transparency in guidance and inspections.

Lee Kyungon, Director of the Climate and Environment Bureau of Gyeongbuk Province, stated, “We will continue to do our utmost to provide a clean and pleasant environment for our residents. Building on this award, we will further solidify our status as the leading province in environmental management and strengthen environmental policies to ensure the sustainable development of local industries and improve the quality of life for our residents.”

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