GANGWON-DO < invest Korea

According to Yonhap News,

Gangwon Province will take action to make its agricultural management stable to respond to the opening of market driven by the Korea-U.S. FTA.

Gangwon Province said on Feb. 6 that it made the strategy of "Vision 2020 for Making Rich and Happy Agricultural Community" designed to minimize the possible effects of the Korea-U.S. FTA on Korean agricultural sector and to enhance its agricultural competitiveness.

The vision is the expanded concept of the central government's policy. It is expanded to increase provincial investment in agriculture based on the belief that the central government's support alone is not enough to enhance Gangwon's agricultural competitiveness. The vision focuses on enhancing core strategy to respond to the Korea-U.S. FTA in a comprehensive manner and on increasing farmers' income.

Gangwon will concentrate its energy on making its agricultural and livestock industry more compatible.             

In addition, it aims at recording 50 million KRW in farmers' income, creating new growth engines, including exports of agricultural products, agricultural tourism, eco-friendly agriculture and food industry.

The province will provide supports for the livestock industry, which is particularly vulnerable to the opening of market, by supporting farmers to produce high-quality meat and decreasing the price of feeds.

Gangwon will enable farmers to provide consumers with quality Korean beef at affordable costs by establishing manufacturing and processing facilities for high-quality meat and establishing direct sales channels. It will also increase productivity of pigs' or milk cows' farms by providing cutting-edge facilities.

Gangwon also plans to increase its self-sufficiency rate in providing roughage feeds up to 92% by 2020, in a bid to decrease the price of feeds for stable management of the livestock industry.

It will develop the food crop sector further by cultivating new functional crops and building eco-friendly producing complexes. The province plans to strike a balance between supply and demand of potatoes with a producer-oriented approach, develop the bean farming by establishing professional producing facilities or cooking towns, and to lead the corn market by cultivating corns as strategic products.

Gangwon will make more compatible its horticultural products or cash crops, such as vegetables, fruits, herbs and ginsengs, by establishing specialized producing complexes.

It will create new growth engines to double agricultural income.  

Gangwon plans to make 100 export-specialized complexes to export its agricultural products and open markets for selling its agricultural and livestock products overseas. It will increase eco-friendly farms from the current rate of 7% range up to 17% and facilitate agricultural tourism by attracting students to visit farms.

It will also be aggressively engaged in creating jobs and increasing incomes through cultivation of indigenous industry (55 centers), introduction of local tasty restaurants (80) and modernization of food processing facility.

Gangwon will take advantage of its accessibility to the Seoul Metropolitan Area to supply 6,000 tons of food to schools in the area annually, which accounts for 15% of the total supply, and will expand its supply channels to conglomerates.       

The province will pursue stable agricultural management by improving systems, such as providing supports for cultivating professional agricultural workforces and expanding agricultural and fishery promotion fund.

Gangwon will operate a team in charge of monitoring country of origin to secure safety of agricultural and livestock products and working-level meeting for agricultural development to exchange opinions on current issues.

In order to implement the plan, a total of 7.876 trillion KRW, including national budget of 3.2581 trillion KRW (42% of the total), provincial budget of 678.5 billion KRW (8.6%) and city and gun's budget of 1.7373 trillion KRW, will be invested.              

Gangwon set aside national budget of 16 billion KRW and provincial budget of 15 billion KRW for the project this year. A total of 91.2 billion will be invested in several phases of the project over years.             

Choi Du-yeong, director of administrative team at Gangwon local office, said, "We've made detailed core strategy to maximize competitiveness of individual agricultural sectors that could be hit hard by the FTA agreement," adding that "We will reflect additional project upon the detailed implementation plan."     

Source Text

Source: Yonhap News (Feb. 8, 2012)

**This is an English translation of a Korean news article.