Sejong ready for role as new administrative hub

The new city of Sejong in central Korea is ready to serve as the country’s new administrative hub, as the first phase of the movement is almost finished, officials said Monday.

Sejong City, some 150 kilometers south of Seoul, came officially into being as a “special autonomous city” in July and will be home to 16 central government ministries and offices as well as 20 subsidiary organizations currently located in or near Seoul.

The first stage of the relocation, which involves six ministries and six other relevant organizations with 5,556 officials, has almost finished. The Prime Minister’s Office began moving in September, and after the move is completed before 2014, some 10,000 officials will have been relocated to the new city.

Looking around the new complex and neighboring regions, Public Administration and Security Minister Maeng Hyung-kyu instructed officials on Monday to strive “to create desirable environments to help officials there to work in a stable manner.”

The government said it will hold a ceremony to celebrate the formal opening of the new government complex on Thursday.

The relocation project nears completion nearly 10 years after Roh Moo-hyun, then the opposition’s presidential candidate, first put forward an election pledge in 2002 to build a new administrative capital in the central region, with aims to promote balanced regional development and ease overpopulation in Seoul and nearby regions, where a fifth of the country’s population of 50 million reside.

After the Constitutional Court’s ruling that the nation’s capital should remain in Seoul, however, the Roh government modified its plan and rebranded Sejong as an administrative city rather than the new capital.

The city is named after King Sejong of the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910), the inventor of the Korean alphabet.

The government complex buildings in downtown Seoul and Gwacheon, a southern Seoul suburb, will continue to be home to several ministries, including the foreign, unification and justice ones, and other agencies that have been located outside the buildings due to space constraints. <The Korea Times/Yonhap>