[INTERVIEW] Mayor pledges to transform Incheon into a Top 10 city

People

Published: 13 Jun. 2023, 17:48 Updated: 13 Jun. 2023, 19:39

[INTERVIEW] Mayor pledges to transform Incheon into a Top 10 city

Incheon mayor Yoo Jeong-bok speaks on transforming Incheon into an international city through the New Hong Kong project, which maximizes its infrastructure from airports to free economic zone. [CHOI YOUNG-JAE]

The slogan “All ways Incheon” greets passengers as they alight the subway in front of Incheon City Hall.

The slogan, first coined in 2016, encompasses the identity of the city as not only Korea's gateway thanks to Incheon International Airport but also the first port in the country to open to foreign trade back in the 19th century.

Today, Incheon is reinventing itself with Songdo International City at its heart, its dramatic high-rise skyline surrounding one of the country's most iconic urban parks.

After having led Korea's modernization with its first open port and first railway, Incheon is now gearing up to become a truly international city.

“Incheon is the only metropolis in our country that continues to see an increase in its population,” said Incheon Mayor Yoo Jeong-bok.

“It is the city where our country’s industrialization and modernization started with the opening of the port in 1883,” Yoo added. “In addition to such history, we have international cities like Songdo, Yeongjeongdo and Cheongna and infrastructure like the global Incheon International Airport, as well as the Free Economic Zone.”

The mayor, however, noted that rapid development in the city has also had side effects, namely the imbalance between the old city and the surrounding new cities.

“The Jemulpo Renaissance and the New Hong Kong projects aim to solve these problems,” Yoo said.

“The role of a leader is to offer a vision of the future that is based on history and reality and to make that vision a reality,” Yoo said.

Yoo served as the Incheon mayor between 2014 and 2018 and reclaimed his office again last year.

As the city’s mayor, he succeeded in having the new Overseas Koreans Agency headquartered in Incheon. The agency officially opened its doors on June 5.

Yoo also held an event that announced the vision of the city’s New Hong Kong project in March, where he promised to transform the city into a global center of logistics, industry, tourism and culture.

The Incheon mayor has quite a resume.

Yoo passed the civil service exam while attending Yonsei University, where he majored in political science.

He was also one of the first individuals to join the Korean Army Officer Candidate School when the program kicked off in 1981.

In 1994, at the age of 37, he was appointed as the governor of what was then Gimpo County, making him the youngest county governor in the country.

The following year, he became the head of Incheon’s Seo District Office, making him the youngest district head in the country, too.
When Gimpo County was elevated to city status in 1998, Kim became the city’s mayor.

He was voted into parliament in 2004 and became the agriculture minister under President Lee Myung-bak in 2010. He also became the Park Geun-hye administration’s first public administration and security minister in 2013.

He then became Incheon’s mayor in 2014. During his first term as Incheon mayor, he had set a record where 6,000 Chinese from a company held a chicken and beer party in Incheon.

The following are excerpts from the interview held with the JoongAng Sunday at the mayor’s office.

Q. Can you tell us about your New Hong Kong plan?

A. We’re still working on the details of the master plan. The goal is to turn Incheon into a high-tech future city that utilizes its infrastructure 120 percent. For example, Hong Kong has Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula. The key to New Hong Kong City is connecting Yeongjongdo with Ganghwa Island.

We plan to link Ganghwa Island, whose 411 square kilometer (158.7 square mile) area is equivalent to 60 percent of Seoul, with Yeongjongdo, which has infrastructure like the international airport, by setting up a bridge.

The basic concept is to position Yeongjongdo, where culture and industry flourish as an international city, and Ganghwa Island, known for its ocean and uninhibited nature, in central roles, and to connect the old Jemulpo area and new cities including Songdo and Cheongna with Seoul through the Ara Canal.

The only thing left to do on the rail network is to have a direct link between the KTX and subway line No.9.

The third bridge connecting Yeongjongdo and Incheon is currently underway, and we expect construction to finish in three or four years.

Our ultimate goal is to step up as one of the world’s top 10 cities.

The concept sketch of Incheon’s Jemulpo Renaissance project. [INCHEON METROPOLITAN CITY]

Can you explain Jemulpo Renaissance?

Jemulpo (the historic port of Incheon) has been the center of Incheon for 100 or so years. But even more so, it led the modernization of our country. The railroad built in 1899, the Gyeonggi Highway that was completed in 1968... both are connected to Jemulpo's central district.

However, it has yet failed to overcome its image of deterioration.

In 1968, when there were 500,000 people living in Incheon, the population of Dong District was 150,000. Today 3 million people live in Incheon, but only 59,000 live in the district.

Thus, our concept is to relocate all of the highways underground and transform Incheon into an innovative city of industry, culture, tourism and economy starting from Jung and Dong District, and down to Michuhol and the southeastern area.
That’s where the New Hong Kong City plan starts.

The Incheon Landing played as significant a role in Incheon’s history as the port's opening.

The Incheon Landing on Sept. 15, 1950, is a great achievement that should be revered in world history. Yet today, we only hold a simple, perfunctory ceremony.

We need to develop it into an international festival where the value of the Incheon Landing is reignited and where peace and security on the Peninsula is concentrated.

Starting this year, we plan to designate the week between Sept. 14 and Sept. 19 for celebrating the Incheon Landing instead of holding a one-time event.

During this week, we plan to hold various events, including the recreation of the Incheon Landing, air shows and international forums.

We plan to gradually expand the size of the landing commemoration project so that by 2025, which marks the 75th anniversary, we will hold an international ceremony where the heads of eight countries that took part in the landing operation and military officials will participate.

By establishing friendly diplomatic relations and networks with countries that fought with us during the Korean War and building the infrastructure, we plan to set up a foundation to turn the ceremony into that which would be suitable for an international city.

As interesting as it is to watch the New Hong Kong City project become a reality, the process of making it real seems to have many challenges.

That is why the Overseas Koreans Agency is important. This is more than just simply opening another government agency. It means transforming Incheon into a central city that will act as the home or capital for 7.5 million Koreans living abroad.

Once we establish a foundation that will allow Koreans overseas to gather their strength, Incheon can become a business center that could open our country into the future.

We already have a 39-story building that the agency is opening in Songdo.

The first phase of a town for Koreans living in the Americas is already opened [in Songdo] and we are now in the works of the second phase of creating the towns for Koreans from Europe and Asia.

There are some 15 international organizations and five Korean and international universities campus. We have all the conditions of an international city, and we are now at the point of making a new leap.

Does Incheon have the competitiveness to become an attractive investment (FDI)?

All the foreign direct investment made at eight free economic zones across the country combined doesn't even account for even half the FDI made in Incheon. Why do you think that is? It’s because we have an international airport, and we have access to a market of 27 million people living in the greater Seoul area.

Furthermore, Incheon is the city of creativity.

The airport, Songdo, Cheongna and the Namdong Industrial Park are all built on reclaimed land.

Songdo alone covers an area of 53.4 square kilometers, which is equivalent to the city of Bucheon.

It’s just like creating another Bucheon with reclaimed land.

With Samsung BioLogics, Celltrion, Lotte Bio and SK Bioscience opening their headquarters here, Songdo has become the world’s No.1 city for the biopharmaceutical industry.

Even in semiconductors, 1,300 companies are here in Incheon, including Stats ChipPAC Korea and Amkor Technology Korea, the world's second- and third-biggest companies in packaging and testing.

Incheon's biggest export good is semiconductor packaging.

So why is the city leading in the semiconductor and biopharmaceutical industries? It’s because it is economical to do business in Incheon, where there is an airport and a harbor.

We also plan to foster future growth industries such as drones, Urban Air Mobility, hydrogen and secondary batteries.

Considering the national growth balance, would it be a good idea to focus investment only in Incheon?

It is true that there are those that do not agree, and I respect that. It is true that in order to achieve balanced national growth, focusing too much development in the greater Seoul area should be prevented.

However, we have to reconsider the idea that the same industries should be developed in all places.

For example, we need to have a strategy where Gangwon focuses on tourism, South Jeolla focuses on a global amusement complex or a massive agriculture or processing complex on the massive Saemangeum reclaimed land project.

Think about what happened to the F1 race in Yeongam, South Jeolla. The F1 circuit received massive investments. But there has been only one race so far. If that race had taken place in Yeongjongdo, it would have been a hit.

That is why investments should be focused on areas that make the best of a region’s characteristics. It is not right to stop others from excelling.

That is why we are currently discussing with the central government on creating a new bill that would designate Incheon as a free city [to free the city from the central government’s development regulations in the greater Seoul area].
We are also discussing amending the law on free economic zones so that investors can make more aggressive investments.

It seems like you have a lot of ideas.

Popular Korean TV dramas such as “My love from the star,” (2013) and “Guardian: The Lonely and Great God” (2016) were filmed in Incheon.

Chinese tourists stuck large numbers of Korean traditional hairpins, which appeared as a token of love in “My love from the star,” in Songdo. And thanks to the hit show, some 6,000 employees of China’s Aurance Group visited Incheon in 2016.

They held a massive chicken and beer event at Wolmido. I remember every fried chicken shop in Incheon was summoned because 3,000 chickens were ordered. Since late last year, we have started to work on attracting Chinese tourists.

You have several personal records, such as being the youngest or the first. Were they planned?

No. You can’t set those records by planning them. When I started my career as a public servant, I was appointed as the governor of Gimpo County, and then the head of the district office.

When I became the head of Gimpo County in the first local government election ever held, I became the youngest city mayor because Gimpo was elevated to city status.

It was pure coincidence that I have set records as the head of all three local government offices, which are records that are hard to break.

It must have not been easy to run in the first directly elected local election.

While I was working as the head of the Seo District Office, I received a call one day from Gimpo County residents who asked me to run for office. Gimpo is not my hometown, I never went to school in Gimpo and have no relatives there.

Yet I became emotional when the people of Gimpo asked me to run for the first local government office as their representative.

Just 25 days before the election in 1995, I turned in my resignation [as the head of the district office].

However, I didn’t need to hold an election campaign. At the time, there were only 60,000 Gimpo voters. Even though I didn’t join any political party and was running as an independent, in just three days 15,000 Gimpo residents signed up to volunteer in my campaign. I gained more votes than the candidates of the two larger parties.

I was told that you also ran for Incheon mayor unexpectedly.

I never considered running for Incheon mayor. I was working as the Public Administration and Security Minister under the Park Geun-hye administration when I was asked to run for office.
Turning in my resignation as a minister wasn’t difficult. But as a politician, it felt like I was giving up on my constituency. However, I didn’t forget the passion and hope of the people in Gimpo when I was their governor. This is important because it is my political philosophy. I could give all that I have to the citizens of the region where I am needed.

That’s what made me who I am today.

It is because I gave everything that I have that the people in Gimpo allowed me, an outsider, to be their mayor for 10 years, and another 10 years as their legislative representative. This is true even today.

I work hard as Incheon’s mayor. There is nothing else.
I am only answering the citizens of Incheon, who have picked me because they needed me.

What are your future plans?

Instead of planning the next election or another seat, I want to do politics for the next generation. The only thought that I have is the future. Whether I again serve as Incheon’s mayor or move to another position, my job is to prepare Incheon and our country for the future.

I intend to play this role right, which is my biggest responsibility. My vision is “Incheon’s dream, the future of Korea.”

I believe fostering Incheon’s huge potential and opportunities will open up Korea’s future.

I have a heavy responsibility to give a message of hope to the residents of Incheon with a vision of unlimited possibilities with biopharmaceuticals and semiconductors at the center, and to develop Incheon into a global city and move forward towards a new future through the Overseas Koreans Agency, turning these visions into reality.

BY KIM CHANG-WOO [kim.changwoo@joongang.co.kr]