Mayor Shin Yeon-hee of Gangnam-gu, Seoul

Mayor Shin Yeon-hee of Gangnam-gu, Seoul, speaks on her plans to lead the ward now that she has won reelection as the mayor of, perhaps, the richest ward in Seoul where many wealthy residents make their homes.

Mayor Shin said she wants to make the ward the best internationalized section in Seoul and she is ready to put up a great fight with Seoul City and central government agencies to keep the Kuryong Village Project as a public project as originally planned against Seoul Mayor Park’s moves to change it to the way he wants. She also wants to have multiple construction projects to develop the old head office site of the Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) to build exhibition halls, international conference facilities, shopping malls, restaurants, apartments, and offices to brighten up its vicinity. The site is to be up put for an open bidding in which Hyundai Motor Group and Samsung Group are counted among Korean firms to participate along with a number of foreign firms like the U.S. firm Sands of Las Vegas and a big Chinese real estate developer, among others, expected to participate. The land is expected to be worth from 3 trillion won to 4 trillion won, according to real estate development sources.

Question: What does your reelection slogan, “Four years of action and four years of completion,” mean, Mayor Shin?

Answer: What I meant was that I will do my best to successfully wrap up the gu’s projects and policies that are yet to be completed successfully, as they are designed to boost the happiness and wellbeing of the gu’s residents if I was given another four-year term.

Q: What are Gangam-gu’s major current issues and the means to solve them?

A:  Of course, it is the successful promotion of the Kuryong Village Project. As you may know, I have been at odds with Seoul City on the ways to promote the project over the past couple of years. There would have been no problem had the city proceeded with the original plan, which was designed as a public project, but Mayor Park changed the original plan to the land exchange method, which appears to favor the large landholders, causing the plan to stall. 

I will continue to fight for the development project for Kuryong Village, the last slum in Seoul, to be promoted as a public project as originally conceived and I will explain my plan in detail later.

I will also request Seoul City and the related central government agencies to use the old site of the Korea Electric Power Corp. for multiple complex projects to build such facilities as an international exhibition hall, conference facilities, cultural and tourism facilities, lodging facilities, and offices so that they would create synergy with COEX located nearby to bring to its vicinity a lively and colorful air, a look of a super modern city block.

Next year, the Suseo KTX Station is scheduled to open and turn the Gangnam-gu area into a transportation hub in the southeastern part of Seoul for around 5 million people living and working in southern Seoul and southern area of Gyeonggi Province, with KTX, GTX and the light electric line passing through the area.

The areas surrounding those transportation lines should be developed with multiple plans so that the area would be a genuine transportation hub providing comfort and convenience to the people using those transportation lines and I will wring out an agreement from Seoul City, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, and other related government agencies to develop the area to such an extent.

Q: Would you please enlighten us on the plan to make Gangnam-gu a nice area to do business in Seoul and what has been done so far with the plan?

A: Gangnam-gu has been providing various support to the business community in the gu to boost sales and strengthen marketing in the form of participation in exhibitions at home and abroad, sending trade missions overseas, trading activities through the internet and other diverse ways to help their businesses grow. According to a survey in July 2010 of 212 business firms in the gu, their export contracts on their products totaled $134 million. We have taken a number of measures in support of SME exporters to boost exports such as giving huge support to the business firms suitable to do business in the gu, holding business forums in the gu and other diverse events, all dedicated to spurring SMEs business activities dedicated to their growth through exports.

For this year, the gu as been planning 11 programs to support SMEs to expand their trade including sending a trade mission to the Confederation of Independent States (CIS) and giving support to SMEs to participate in overseas trade exhibitions, among others. Some 132 businesses will benefit from the gu’s support for their marketing activities. As I noted, 212 firms that got the gu’s help already have signed contracts for the export of their products.

The gu also wants to provide help to poor individuals and business firms in the gu to get low-interest loans from the cooperative funds available from the commercial banks and the gu’s SME Support Fund to stabilize their operations as part of the gu’s plan to spur its economy, which would go a long way to make Gangnam-gu a good place to do business.

The SME Support Fund is for SMEs with more than a year in operation in the gu and they can borrow as much as 300 million won at an annual interest rate of 2.5 percent. Last year, 34 firms received loans totaling 6.5 billion won from the Fund and some 8 billion won is expected to be provided to those firms this year.

Q:  How is the gu’s work to conclude cooperative ties with major cities abroad going? And what are future plans to continue to promote and increase these ties?

A: We have been working on our plan to revive the gu’s economy since the middle of my last term as the mayor as our priority objective. So far, we have been managed to send four trade missions abroad: North America such as Los Angeles and Gwinnett County near L.A., China (Beijing and Shenyang), Europe (Austria, Croatia, and France), Southeast and South Asia (Thailand and India). This year, we plan to send trade missions to Russia and Kazakhstan where Korean and Kazakh business leaders signed an MOU for the expansion of trade.

Q: What are your important plans for the gu during your new term?

A:  As the mayor reelected in the 6th Civilian Election, my major objectives would be to boost the character and pride of the gu’s residents as high as they can go and made nine promises to realize those objectives. I will try my best to keep those promises with the first one being to make Gangnam-gu the launch pad for some 10 million foreign tourists; second, to make the gu the center of shopping and the creative economy; third, to make the gu the number one place for public education in Seoul; fourth, to make the gu a place where senior citizens will be respected and where everyone who deserves official welfare support gets it; fifth, to see that the gu has the most convenient transportation system; sixth, to make the gu the place with the best residential environment; seventh, to ensure that the gu has an advanced safety culture; eighth, to give the gu the top security network in Korea; ninth, to make life in the gu truly comfortable by taking care of uncomfortable matters and easing regulations in order to make the gu a nice place to live.