One Hundred-eighty to 200 Public Institutions in the Metropolitan Area to Be Relocated

Of the 268 public institutions currently in Seoul and the metropolitan area, 180 to 200 of them will be moved to another region until 2012.

The Ministry of Construction & Transportation, through a party-government consultative conference with the Uri Party, announced, “The ministry is currently sorting out the residual and relocation of the public institutions in the metropolitan area,” and that they are speculating a shift of 180 to 200 institutions. The ministry also added, “The number of people working in these 200 institutions is approximately 35,000.”

These public institutions include central administrative offices, government investment institutions, affiliated offices of the central administration, and others. Currently, there are 268 of these public institutions in the metropolitan area.

The Ministry of Construction & Transportation will enforce a group relocation system in which a group of institutions with similar characteristics will go to one suitable region. One or two relocating sites would be constituted in each city.

Which institutions will be relocated is still yet undecided and will be determined at the end of August through various collections of public opinions. The relocating procedure will start from the second half of the year until the end of next year, and the entire operation will end in 2012, which is the year when the new capital is expected to be completed.

The Ministry of Construction & Transportation announced that they will try to balance the number of people and institutions being moved to each region.

Kwang-Hyun Kim kkh@donga.com