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Gimhae, south Gyeongsang Province (Gyeongnam) is emerging as an industrial hub for companies from home and abroad by addressing issues concerning unregulated and uncontrolled development.
As of the end of August, there were an estimated 6,500 small-and-medium-sized factories in Gimhae, sprawled across various locations in an uncontrolled manner.
In order to stop the unplanned development, the city pushed ahead with a plan to beef up regulation on factory sites, even amid the fierce opposition from regional companies voicing concerns that the regulation could undermine the establishment of new factories.
Along with the regulation, the city accelerated its efforts to develop high-tech industrial complexes.
It created a consortium with Hyundai Construction in late August to build a 3.275 million square meter-complex including IT-related industrial, support and public facilities.
Gimhae also decided to team up with Gyeongsangnam-do Development Corporation to build a general industrial complex on a 443,000 square meter-site.
The city is constructing Techno Valley on a 1.52 million square meter-site in collaboration with Hanwha City Development.
The construction of the three complexes will be completed in 2015.
In addition, Korea's first photovoltaic industrial complex, being constructed on a 1.5 million square meter-site via partnership between Gimhae and Korea Industrial Complex Corporation, is scheduled for completion within this year.
Gimhae has also focused on attracting large-size companies.
For one, it successfully enticed Japan-based SoftBank's to invest 85 billion won to build Gimhae Databank in partnership with KT.
The city also inked investment contracts worth a total of 698.9 billion won with six companies including Japan's automotive component manufacturer KURODA ELECTRIC.
Under the contract, KURODA ELECTRIC will inject 400 billion won to establish a 45,000 square meter-industrial complex designated for Japanese companies by partnering EK Industry and Kyongnam Bank, which is expected to create about 1,600 jobs.
The 400 billion won-investment news grabs much attention in that this is Korea's first industrial complex established though collaboration between a foreign conglomerate and domestic partners.
"We revamped administrative procedures to break the vicious cycle of uncontrolled development," said Mayor Kim Maeng-gon.
Source: Yonhap News (Aug. 30, 2012)