Seoul Mayor Oh flies to Europe for urban inspiration

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Seoul Mayor Oh flies to Europe for urban inspiration

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon heads to Europe Friday on an 11-day trip to compare notes on urban development.

 
The Seoul Metropolitan Government announced Thursday that Oh will visit seven cities in four nations from Friday through Oct. 31. The destinations are Paris, Lausanne and Basel in Switzerland, Madrid and Seville in Spain, and Amsterdam and Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
 
Oh's trip begins Friday in Paris, where he will stay three days.
 
In the French capital, he will attend a French garden festival, International Garden Festival of Chaumont-sur-Loire, to get inspiration for the Seoul Garden Show. He will see a green makeover planned for the famed Champs-Elysees, and visit the Paris Rive Gauche area, an industrial wasteland that has been redeveloped through easing of height regulations.
 
The mayor will meet Marc-Antoine Jamet, the president of Cosmetic Valley, a French business cluster specializing in cosmetics, to discuss Korean companies' chances in the European markets.
 
From Oct. 23 to 25, Oh will attend an annual meeting of the World Union of Olympic Cities in Lausanne, Switzerland, and meet key members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and mayors of Olympic host cities. He will promote Seoul’s strengths as a global sports city and discuss a bid to host the 2036 Summer Olympics.
 
In Basel, considered the center of the global biopharma industry, Oh will promote overseas expansion of Seoul's bio and medical startups.
 
From Oct. 26, Oh will fly to Spain to check out Madrid's Arroyofresno storm tank, Europe's largest rainwater reservoir. Seoul is planning to build rainwater storage tunnels underground in three areas by 2027.
 
Oh will also visit Rio Park in Madrid, which moved its central highway underground and made the riverside area more accessible.
 
In Seville, Oh will visit the world's largest wooden structure, Metropole Parasol, to explore the possibility of using wooden buildings as a solution to climate change.
 
From Oct. 28, the Seoul mayor will tour the Netherlands to see striking projects such as the Floating Office Rotterdam and the Maritime District, a high-rise waterfront development area. He is looking for innovative designs that could be used in the Korean capital.

BY SEO JI-EUN [seo.jieun1@joongang.co.kr]
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