Gumi Emerges as a Model City for Revitalizing Regional Areas

【Financial News Gumi=Kim Jang-wook】Gumi is emerging as a model city for revitalizing regional areas in South Korea.
Gumi has won the Corporate Attraction Innovation Grand Prize in recognition of its efforts to overcome the threat of regional extinction and restore vitality to the area through its largest-ever investment attraction results.
On the 16th, it received the Corporate Attraction Innovation Grand Prize at the Korea Local Guardian Awards held at the Korea Press Center in Seoul.
Mayor Kim Jang-ho emphasized, "This grand prize is the fruit of the sweat shed by the 410,000 citizens of Gumi and local businesspeople who together created the miracle of KRW 16 trillion. We will continue to build a virtuous cycle in which the results of attracting businesses lead to job creation, an influx of young people, and vitality in neighborhood economies, completing Gumi as the nation's foremost role model for overcoming regional extinction."
The biggest achievement has been the explosive performance in attracting investment. During the eighth elected municipal administration (2022–2026), the city attracted a total of KRW 16.1635 trillion from approximately 1,140 companies and created 12,346 jobs. This is nearly double the KRW 8.2852 trillion recorded during the previous seventh elected municipal administration.
The upward momentum has continued, with the city attracting KRW 1.055 trillion from 23 companies in just one month of the ninth elected municipal administration.
Economic indicators also rebounded sharply as Gumi upgraded the structure of its national industrial complex, focusing on high-value strategic industries such as semiconductors, defense, artificial intelligence, and robotics.
According to the “Major Employment Indicators for the First Half of 2026” released by the Ministry of Data and Statistics last month, Gumi’s employment rate was 64.0%, up 2.7 percentage points from 61.3% in the same period a year earlier. Exports also showed positive signs.
According to Gumi Customs’ June import and export trends, based on customs clearance figures, cumulative exports in the first half of this year totaled USD 21.3 billion, up 66.1% from USD 12.8 billion in the same period a year earlier.
The improvement in economic indicators directly led to population recovery, the top priority for all regional areas. The population decline, which reached 4,471 people in 2022, plunged to 937 people last year—just one-fifth of the previous level.
Despite the nationwide crisis of extremely low birth rates, the number of births increased for two consecutive years, from 1,892 in 2023 to 2,014 in 2024 and 2,055 last year. The figures demonstrate a virtuous-cycle model in which stable jobs and diverse policies lead to young people settling in the area and having children.
Meanwhile, these achievements were supported by the city’s meticulous administrative assistance. Gumi provided customized support for businesses by operating a corporate difficulties response team and North Gyeongsang Province’s first one-stop civil affairs team, while taking the lead in securing national projects such as the defense industry innovation cluster and the semiconductor-specialized complex.

[email protected] Kim Jang-wook Reporter