- Mayor shares achievements and future administrative direction for Incheon as a world-class city -

- Mayor Yoo Jeong-bok says, “My only concern is the happiness of our people and the future of Incheon” -

Celebrating his first year in office as the City’s 8th democratically elected Mayor, Incheon Metropolitan City Mayor Yoo Jeong-bok shared his vision to help grow Incheon into one of the world's top 10 cities. 

 <Incheon Mayor Yoo Jeong-bok details his most notable achievements over the past year, and the direction of his municipal administration at a press conference on June 22 (City Hall conference room) hosted to mark the first year anniversary of the City’s 8th democratically elected Mayor> 

Incheon Metropolitan City held a press conference celebrating the first anniversary of its 8th democratically elected administration at City Hall (conference room) on June 22 to share the Mayor’s most notable achievements over the past year and the future direction for the Mayor’s administration.

<Press conference celebrating the first year of the 8th democratically elected City administration> 

Mayor Yoo Jeong-bok said that ever since taking office as the 8th democratically elected Mayor, he has been relentless in listening to experts and citizens in the field, and that he has reflected much of the feedback he got in the City’s policies. The Mayor also said that he focused on laying the groundwork for Incheon to grow over the past year.

He looked back on some of his achievements to date, and explained the direction his administration wants to take going forward, which is to build an “Incheon soaring toward its dreams, and a powerful push to become a top-10 city in the world.”

First, under the Mayor’s leadership, one of Incheon’s oldest wishes, to renovate the aging old city center and alleviate the regional imbalance across the City, has seen some meaningful progress.

Yeongjong-do residents will get to cross the Incheon Bridge and Yeongjong Bridge free of charge from October 1. Although this has been considered key to improving the residential conditions for Yeongjong-do residents for a while now, previous attempts were thwarted due to opposition from the central government. Also, the Incheon-daero will move underground, which could rescue the old city center from isolation and help improve the safety and speed of traffic, while the surface area will become a place where locals can visit and relax.

Over the past year, Incheon also saw its Baengnyeong Airport project get final approval as a national project (December 27, 2022). When complete, the new airport could significantly improve access to the five islands in the Yellow Sea near the South Korea-North Korea border.

Also, given the four-party consultative body tasked with resolving the landfill issue in the metropolitan area reconvening for discussions, the agreement is expected to gain more momentum. Major projects such as the Songdo Landmark Tower and Cheongna City Tower, which have shown little progress for years, are expected to get back on track as well. 

Second, Incheon laid the foundation for becoming a global hub city by winning the right to host the Overseas Koreans Agency, which means the City is now home to - either directly with its local citizens or indirectly with overseas Koreans - more than 10 million Koreans. 

Once the decision was made to bring the Overseas Koreans Agency to Incheon, the City launched the “Incheon 10 Million City Project” that involved creating a new Overseas Koreans Agency Launch Support Group, opening a Welcome Center for Overseas Koreans, and creating a business hub for Korean businesses across the globe.

Incheon's capacity as an international metropolis and commercial hub has been on full display since its success in hosting the Asian Development Bank (ADB) annual meeting in May. Leveraging this, the City plans to work with the general public to win the bid to host the 2025 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Incheon.

Third, the Mayor plans to create a growth engine for Incheon by developing future high-tech industries such as bio and mobility. 

Incheon, the world's largest biopharmaceutical production hub, plans to further widen the super-gap it enjoys in the market. 

Recently, Lotte Biologics signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) aimed at quickly building biopharmaceutical production facilities in Korea, and SK Bioscience started building a research center as well. In July last year, Samsung BioLogics confirmed the news that it plans on making additional investments in Incheon, and then, in October, Incheon further strengthened its position as a world-class bio cluster by attracting the manufacturing and research facilities of Sartorius, a global biomaterials company from Germany.

Incheon also appears to be taking the lead in exchanging future mobility technology, facilitating future mobility research and development, and strengthening industry-university-research cooperation with its new BMW R&D Center (February 2023) in Cheongna, and global cooperative body for urban air mobility (UAM) (November 2022), etc. Incheon is strengthening its foundation for a competitive aviation Maintenance and Repair Organization (MRO) industry ecosystem with the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) cargo plane remodeling project (April 2023) and by building the US Atlas Aircraft Heavy Equipment Center (December 2022).

Fourth, the city of Incheon launched the Special Committee for Public Welfare and Stability, which will focus on improving the living conditions for Incheon citizens, and the Special Committee for Future Preparation, which is tasked with preparing for the coming future. Incheon City is making efforts to provide necessary daily services to citizens, such as heating subsidies available to protect vulnerable and low-income citizens and increased support for infertile couples going through fertility treatment.

To improve the quality of life in Incheon, the City is building the new Starfield Cheongna Multi Stadium as well as a local Yonsei University Severance Hospital. By doing so, Incheon is also taking more responsibility as a global city and is improving its reputation in the process.

Mayor Yoo Jeong-bok said, “Our vision as a city is ‘Dream of Incheon, the Vision of Korea.’ We’re laying a strong foundation in the spirit of ‘Daebungmalli’ for more balanced development between the old city center and the new city districts going forward. In order to make Incheon a truly world-class city, my administration will continue to build up high-tech industries that could lead not only Incheon, but Korea into the future.”

* Daebungmalli refers to the legendary “Bungsae” that could fly 45,000km in a day. It means clearly setting a goal for a bright future and making every effort to build a robust foundation. 

He continued, “Over the past year, we focused mostly on building a solid foundation for the happiness of our citizens and the future of Incheon. Now, it's time for us to take it to the skies and make our dreams of turning Incheon into a top-10 global city come true.”