Incheon, City of International Peace, grand ambitions

Hwang Hyo-jin, Vice Mayor for Global City Affairs, hosts the task force meeting for supporting the bringing of the 2025 APEC forum to Incheon at the City Hall Auditorium

By Habib Toumi

INCHEON: Incheon Metropolitan City is set to become an international meeting point for people from across the world, its vice mayor has said.

“Featuring the world’s best hub, Incheon International Airport, Incheon Part that serves as a logistics hub for Northeast Asia, , Incheon is South Korea’s key economic and international city connected to the entire world,” Hwang Hyo-jin, Vice Mayor for Global City and Political Affairs of Incheon Metropolitan City, has said.

The global connection is reinforced by the fact that Incheon is also home to various international organizations, several renowned universities, research institutes, and bio and semiconductor-related enterprises, he added.

The senior official was addressing journalists from several countries who attended the World Journalists Conference 2024.

Incheon a port city in the Gyeonggi province, lies near the mouth of the Han River, 40 kilometers west-southwest of Seoul with which it is connected by highway and railroad.

With more than a quarter of South Korea’s population, Gyeonggi Province is the largest local autonomy in the country. It boasts abundant housing, hospitals, schools and cultural facilities.

The province leads Korea in terms of population, education, economy, industry and more.

“Currently, we are pushing forward to win the bid to host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) 2025. Incheon will no longer be an unusable city that borders North Korea. It will emerge as a city of genuine solidarity and peace and where people from all over the world will convene to discuss our future,” Hwang Hyojin said.

APEC, an economic forum consisting of 21 Asia-Pacific economies, is the premier economic forum for promoting sustainable economic growth and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region by pursuing the liberalization and facilitation of trade and investment.

As APEC is now striving to achieve sustainable and inclusive growth that lowers the barriers hindering all the people in the region from enjoying the benefits of economic growth and encourage them to participate in economic activities, Korea is committed to actively participating in this process by taking the lead in the discussions on timely issues such as the digital economy, connectivity, and inclusion.

On April 8, 2024, Incheon Transportation Corporation’s Wolmi Sea Train is running along the cherry blossom road to promote the Incheon Kindergarten Center for the 2025 APEC Summit at Wolmi Park in Jung-gu, Incheon (Photo by Yonhap News)

Korea even set up the Korea National Center for APEC Studies, a government-funded economic research center established to foster research and academic discussion that support the broader APEC mission of regional economic integration in the Asia Pacific region.

Another ambition entertained by Incheon is to attract the Formula 1 (F1) Grand Prix, one of the top three sports events in the world alongside the Olympics and the World Cup, to the city. The Incheon Metropolitan Government has begun all-out efforts to achive this goal.

Alongside its economic and sports ambitions, Incheon is also asserting its status as a city of international peace and coexistence after it recovered successfully from destruction during the Korean War.

“Incheon last year declared itself a ‘City of International Peace’ … Incheon, once reduced to ashes by tens of thousands of shells, has risen to a city of the future and a global city through industrialization, symbolizing freedom and peace,” Hwang Hyojin said.

On September 15, 1950, less than three months into the Korean War (1950 – 1053), Incheon was the site of the Incheon Landing Operation, a heroic military maneuver comparable to the Normandy Landing during World War II, he added.

“Incheon Operation served as a dramatic turning point in safeguarding the absolute value of freedom ad peace of humanity. It was also the first step for the Korean War to be recorded as the just victory of humanity,” the vice-mayor said.

Incheon Songdo Convensia, planned to be used as the 2025 APEC summit hall

To mark the anniversary of the turning point in the dramatic war, Incheon has designated a Commemoration Week on September 6-12.

“The city will organize large-scale events to upgrade this commemoration into an international event that could be the equivalent to the Normandy landing commemoration, raising the historic value of the operation where many young people from different countries gathered strength and perished for the noble causes of freedom and peace,” Hwang Hyojin said.

On 6 June 1944, D-Day, Allied troops landed on the coast of Normandy at the start of the campaign to liberate Europe. The anniversary is commemorated annually to honor the memory of the events and of more than 150,000 men and women who participated in the landing and the liberation of Europe.