South Chungcheong Governor Park Soo-hyun: “We’ll back $390 million in U.S. investment with lightning-fast administration”

[Financial News, Hongseong = Kim Won-jun, staff writer] South Chungcheong Governor Park Soo-hyun said he would support investments by global companies secured during his trip to the United States with “three-pronged innovation” and “lightning-fast administration.” With the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea beginning deliberations on next year’s budget proposal, Park is also launching an all-out effort to secure a record amount of national funding.
Park held a press conference in the provincial government’s briefing room on the 2nd to discuss the results of his trip to the United States last month and his strategy for securing national funding next year. He said, “The direction of South Chungcheong Province’s economic expansion during its ninth popularly elected term is to build a two-way economic highway, with global companies heading to South Chungcheong and South Chungcheong companies going global.” He described the trip as “economic diplomacy that proved South Chungcheong to be the world’s most attractive investment destination and opened the way for our companies.”
During the trip, global U.S. semiconductor and display materials companies agreed to invest a total of $396.3 million in South Chungcheong Province. They plan to build new production facilities or expand existing ones in industrial complexes in Cheonan and Asan. Park stressed, “I will support this seed so it can grow well with three-pronged innovation and lightning-fast administration.”
At an export consultation event in New York, 20 small and medium-sized enterprises from the province held meetings with local buyers. Seven of them signed export contracts worth a total of $20.71 million.
On securing national funding, Park said that 13.2632 trillion won had initially been included for South Chungcheong Province in next year’s government budget proposal. “We will fully protect the budget already included and increase the allocations for items that were not included so they can be finalized,” he said.
The government’s proposal is up 1.3335 trillion won (11.2%) from this year’s government proposal of 11.9297 trillion won, and 940.9 billion won (7.6%) higher than this year’s final amount approved by the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea, 12.3223 trillion won. However, it is 236.8 billion won short of the province’s target of 13.5 trillion won, making it necessary to secure additional funding at the National Assembly stage.
Park named the National Research Platform for Advanced Displays, the South Chungcheong Defense Innovation Cluster, Advanced Bio Value-Up in the Central Region, and the Offshore Wind Turbine Component Testing Center as key projects. “We will put up a thorough defense so that not a single won is cut from or lost to projects that will strengthen South Chungcheong’s future competitiveness during deliberations,” he said.
He also said the province would protect funding for transportation networks, including the connection between the Seohae Line and the Gyeongbu High-Speed Line. He plans to safeguard every won of the 20 billion won in funding—including 6.3 billion won in the main budget and 13.7 billion won for disaster response measures, secured in consultation with the Korea Forest Service—and make a success of the nation’s first industrialized pest-control model led by South Chungcheong. Regarding essential national projects not fully covered in the government proposal, including the establishment of a national cemetery for patriots in the South Chungcheong region and the construction of the Livestock Environment Management Institute, he said, “We will persuade lawmakers from both the ruling and opposition parties during National Assembly deliberations and make sure we secure additional support.”
To that end, Park said he would launch budget policy consultations with local constituency lawmakers from both the ruling and opposition parties in conjunction with the comprehensive policy questioning by the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea’s Budget and Accounts Committee, which begins on the 4th of this month, and meet committee members one after another to make “the compelling case for investment in South Chungcheong.”
Park added, “If diplomacy opened the door and the government proposal paved the way, we will now get South Chungcheong’s budget finalized in the National Assembly. With unwavering resolve, I will work tirelessly on the ground and do everything I can right up to the final moment of the Assembly’s budget deliberations.”
[email protected] Kim Won-jun Reporter