Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon poses with Chairman Lee Suk-joon of the Seoul Vision 2030 Committee and other committee members during an inaugural meeting on May 3. (Photo: SMG)

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon revealed the groundwork of the “Seoul Vision 2030” designed to make Seoul among the “top five global super cities,” equivalent to London, New York, Tokyo and Paris in terms of global competitiveness.

Mayor Oh touched on the groundwork of the vision he had discussed with 40 experts for the past three months during an interview with a vernacular economic daily at Seoul City Hall on July 23.

Mayor Oh stressed the need to eliminate corporate and financial restrictions to boost Seoul’s global competitiveness. He said he plans to ask the central government to relax restrictions, such as those on overconcentration zones that have put pressure on Yeouido, are a stumbling block in attracting foreign financial institutions.

Oh revealed that the four takeaways of the Seoul Vision 2030 are a “global city,” a “safe life city,” a “shared growth city,” and a “future-sensitive city.” He said Seoul is putting the final touches on the specifics of the vision.

Among the specifics are ways of nurturing the Seoul-type beauty industry as a future growth engine. In this context, he said, Seoul is considering changing the capital’s current brand (I.Seoul.U) with the pending approval of the change from Seoul City Council.

Seoul Vision 2030 calls for elevating Seoul to the status of global super mega-cities such as London, New York, Tokyo and Paris.
“Under the vision, SMG wants to make Seoul, which ranks 25th based on a report from GN Global Consulting, rise to fifth, third in terms of R&D competitiveness and fifth in terms of future competitiveness based on an estimate by the Mori Memorial Foundation of Japan,” he said.

Seoul’s global competitiveness has so far declined. The global consulting firm AT Kearney reported that Seoul saw its global city index rankings drop from 11th in 2015 to 17th last year and global city outlook rankings plummet from 12th to 42nd during the same period. The Mori Memorial Foundation reported that Seoul saw its overall competitiveness decline from 6th in 2015 to 8th last year.

 
Mayor Oh emphasized the need to raise corporate competitiveness to ramp up the capital’s global competitiveness. To this end, Oh is putting policy priority on regulatory reform.

“Seoul will create an environment in which companies can conduct new experiments as they want to do, and the capital will do all things they can do so that companies can break the conventional mold and pursue innovation on areas such as Sangam’s mobility, Yeouido’s financing and Hongneung’s bio,” he said.

But Mayor Oh said he cannot do many things due to regulations. Boundaries between manufacturing and service industries are blurred increasingly and corporate conditions undergo tremendous changes, he said.

Oh regrets the uniform designation of the Seoul metropolitan area as an overconcentration zone with stringent curb on development, which serves as a stumbling block to attract foreign financial institutions, since such regulations ban incentives such as tax credits.

He is also calling for the relaxation of the 52-hour workweek. Mayor Oh plans to recommend the amendment of laws that hinder Seoul’s international competitiveness to the parliament and the central government.

Mayor Oh, 100 days in office, said he had devoted himself to speeding up urban renewal projects, a foundation for housing supply.