Military Areas will Diminish

It is expected that four military areas amounting to 3.2 billion-pyong, including a protective area for military facilities, naval base area, flight safe area and base protective area, will be downsized through the end of this year.

In addition, land use regulations with similar purpose and function will be integrated and the number of areas to be able to construct small-sized factories will increase from 46 to 51.

At its meeting for the coordination of economic policy held at the Gwacheon Government Complex on March 25, the government checked the progress of its plans to reform land regulation and decided to proceed with the above-mentioned plan in order to solve public inconveniences and to supply business-friendly and environment-friendly land.

The government agreed to prepare the improvement plan of land regulation with each department and to announce the plans next month.

First, the government will adjust the scale of four military areas of 3.2 billion-pyong after re-examining each controlling unit.

The government also decided to close down four areas under the control of the Ministry of Environment, including a special protective area for an ecosystem, a buffer zone, a protective area for parks and a temporary area for the preserve of an ecosystem that didn’t show remarkable achievements.

In order to enforce the above-mentioned plan, the Ministry of Environment has finished revising the laws for preserving nature and is currently promoting to revision of the laws for natural parks.

In addition, six regions, including an area for the establishment of a dam, an area for road, and a region with no factories, under the Ministry of Construction and Transportation, will be shut down.

The Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Construction and Transportation will confirm their decision as to whether or not abolish the controlled regions and districts as well as their decision regarding the reduction or adjustment of the designated size and will announce their verdicts on April 15.

The government also decided to combine the regions and districts with similar purposes and functions by unifying the regions for underground water preservation as well as the district for underground water preservation.

Regarding the region for cultural properties protection, the government also decided to examine the suitability of the region every 10 years and to conduct fieldwork research after selecting an object for suitability test among 64 relics.

At the same time, the government decided to appoint five additional regions after it designated 46 regions capable of accommodating factories, which induces the concentration of small-sized factories of under 10,000 square meters (3,025 pyong) at the end of last year.

The government also agreed to completely support foundation and equipment costs if the high-tech industrial complex city is developed into the public rental industrial complex and to lower the selling price of the Bukpyeong and Daebul national industrial complex by 30 to 50 percent in order to solve the situation in which the industrial complex is non-distributed or under-developed.

Additionally, the government is working to arrange a plan to divide the land by site or registration unit for the Asan and Bugok areas.

Jae-Seong Hwang jsonhng@donga.com