Mayor Park Won-soon of Seoul Metropolitan Government delivers his New Year’s speech at a ceremony to kick off the new year at Seoul City Hall on Jan. 2. (Photos:SMG)

Seoul Metropolitan Government has allocated 2.193 trillion won for various projects that the city will undertake this year, including goods to be purchased, the city said recently.

The budget includes civil and other construction projects to be ordered by the city itself, the city’s business units, investments, and investments by investor organizations. The construction projects would be more than 500 million won, more than 300 million won for landscape, electricity, communication, installation related projects, more than 100 million won for service, and more than 20 million won for the purchase of goods, totaling 1,639 cases.

The city has been making its projects public since 2013.

By sector, civil engineering projects would be worth 628.4 billion won (282 cases), construction projects to be ordered are worth 822 billion won (69 cases), landscaping projects are worth 61.9 billion won (18 cases), installation related projects are worth 309.1 billion won (202 cases), service projects are 179.1 billion won (311 cases) and the purchase of goods are worth 133.2 billion won.

By department, City Hall will take charge of 255 cases worth 208.1 billion won, the operation unit’s 662 cases worth 695.3 billion won, investment organizations’ 710 cases worth 1.261 trillion won over 710 cases, investor organizations’ 52 cases worth 28.9 billion won.

The city invites anyone who wants to confirm details of its projects this year to visit its homepage. The city said it will announce if there are changes in the projects, or if new projects have been created via a monthly update.

The pre-announced number of projects totaled 12,000 cases in 2013, but they increased 50 percent in 2014, to attract increased attention from related business firms and citizens, the city said.

Seoul proclaimed its Sharing City Seoul Project on Sept. 20, 2012, along with a plan to conduct sharing projects closely related to the lives of citizens. Seoul sees the Sharing City Seoul project as a social innovation measure that has been designed to create new economic opportunities, to restore reliable relationships, and to reduce the waste of resources with a view to resolving urban economic, social, and environmental problems together. Notably, while the existing city policies focus on the construction of primary infrastructures such as roads, parking areas, schools and libraries, the city’s future policies focus on the construction of secondary infrastructures such as spaces, objects, talent and other unused resources in order to boost utilization. Furthermore, Seoul is set to implement other policies that will respect and promote private-sector capabilities, as well as policies that will require the public sector to open public resources that are to be shared with the citizens.

“First, sharing allows us to gain more benefits with fewer or less resources since it enhances the usefulness of resources,” the city said. “Therefore, the government can provide more services to the citizens with a smaller budget.” 

For example, the construction of a new building for community gatherings will require a huge budget to secure sufficient space. If citizens are able to share the meeting rooms and auditoriums of City Hall, gu offices, and citizen centers that are vacant on weeknights and during weekends, however, they can use such spaces for gathering within a short distance without spending too much money.