[Opinion] Ostensible ‘Special Zones’

Magistrate Yim Jeong-yeop of Wanju, Jeonbuk halted the expenditure of wine-special zone budget funding right after his inauguration last year. Despite 3.9 billion won of government and local budget money poured into building vineyards and constructing wine factories, analyses indicated that Korean-made win simply does not have marketability.

Many types of high quality grapes are produced in Wanju, but the former magistrate failed to cultivate imported grapes suitable for brewing due to different climate. Magistrate Yim said, “I collected opinions from various circles and decided to abandon the wine project and to change the wine facilities into jam factories.”

Last week, the government canceled the designation of Wanju-gun as a special zone for winemaking. It was the first cancellation since the adoption of the special zone system in 2005. The government explained that it canceled the designation because Wanju-gun, at its disposal, changed the use of wine factories and took other measures that suspended the localized business, but Magistrate Yim’s story was different: “I applied for the cancellation in order to prevent further waste of budget money.” Initially, 14.1 billion won in government and local budget money and private investments had been earmarked for this project over 10 years from 2005 with the hopes of creating a winemaking industry. Had the special zone been prolonged, more budget money would have been spent in vain.

The government added 10 special zones last week to its list, raising the total to 96. The whole nation is practically being turned into special zones. A special zone is partially exempt from administrative regulations in aid of promoting local-specific business projects.

Project costs usually have to be paid from small local budgets. The central government then distributes funding. Autonomies compete with one another to qualify for a subsidy with minimum preparations. An assessment by the government, however, showed that 17 out of 24 special zones were ‘not gradable at this point’ or showed a lack of achievement.

The One Village One Product campaign implemented by Hiramastu Morihiko, who was inaugurated as the governor of Oita Prefecture, Japan, in 1979 was an independent campaign of the province which refused to receive subsidies from the government. South Korea’s government seems to have made a reference to this campaign in setting forth its “balanced national development” plan, but the special zones in South Korea are a system in which the central government intervenes and spends vast amounts of money. Who will enjoy the benefits? “We should keep an eye on whether the projects are helping businessmen with poor ability speculate on land,” says Magistrate Yim.

Hong Koni, Editorial Writer, konihong@donga.com