Jinju City and Victoria University of New Zealand to Promote International Cooperation in Garden Sector

First Step Toward an International Network of Garden Culture Cities
Signing of Letter of Intent (LOI) with the University of Victoria

Jinju City in South Gyeongsang Province announced on November 19 that it had visited Wellington City Hall, the capital of New Zealand, and the University of Victoria to discuss ways to expand international exchanges in the fields of gardens, landscaping, and urban greening. During the visit, Jinju City also officially signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) for cooperation with the University of Victoria.

The Jinju City Garden Culture Urban International Cooperation Team (hereafter referred to as the Cooperation Team) visited Wellington City Hall to share policies on garden culture and green city initiatives from both cities and to discuss future directions for collaboration.

Wellington City is implementing “responding to climate change and building a sustainable city” as a core policy, focusing on expanding urban connectivity, improving pedestrian environments, and transforming idle spaces into gardens, thereby striving to create an urban environment where people and nature coexist.

Photo of Jinju City signing a Letter of Intent (LOI) for cooperation with the University of Victoria.

Jinju City also introduced its experience in hosting the Garden Industry Expo and its “Garden Culture City” policy, confirming shared interests with Wellington. This meeting marked a meaningful occasion as both cities shared a vision for sustainable garden cities and took the first step toward policy exchange.

Following this, the Cooperation Team visited the University of Victoria in Wellington to discuss ways to promote international exchanges in the fields of architecture, landscaping, and urban environment. The University of Victoria is a globally recognized educational institution in architecture, landscape architecture, and urban environmental design, boasting a strong international landscape network and extensive research capabilities.

The University of Victoria shared its experience operating the Superblock Project and discussed practical collaborative tasks, such as integrating this experience into Jinju City's garden city policies, developing joint programs in connection with the 2027 Jinju International Garden Art Expo, and expanding exchanges between students and professionals. Based on these discussions, the two institutions officially signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) to promote exchanges in the field of gardens and urban greening.

Jinju City assesses that, through the signing of this LOI, it has laid the groundwork to enhance the expertise of its garden policies by linking with the University of Victoria's international landscape research network and extensive research capabilities, and to expand the sustainable garden city model pursued by Jinju as a Garden Culture City on an international scale.

The Cooperation Team stated, “This discussion with Wellington City marked a meaningful first step in international cooperation based on the shared values of garden culture and green city strategies, and the signing of the LOI with the University of Victoria will serve as an opportunity for Jinju as a Garden Culture City to further expand the expertise and foundation for exchanges from an international perspective.”

They added, “Going forward, we will continue to actively promote various policies and exchanges so that exchanges with overseas professional institutions can be further expanded and integrated into actual policies, allowing garden culture to naturally become part of citizens’ daily lives and enabling Jinju City to grow as an international garden city.”

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