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South Korea's hosting of the United Nations climate fund's secretariat will
likely boost the domestic service sector, as it will create demand from its
staff and family members traveling to the main office, the finance minister said
Monday.
On Saturday, the board members of the Green Climate Fund (GCF)
decided to place its secretariat in Songdo, west of Seoul, in a long-running
competition with other five countries including Germany, Switzerland and Mexico.
Its final approval will be made later this year in Qatar.
The GCF is a
U.N. fund whose main purpose is to channel money from industrialized nations to
developing countries, helping them tackle global warming and other problems
related to climate change.
"The hosting of the GCF is expected to
contribute to the development of the service sector here," Finance Minister Bahk
Jae-wan told an international forum.
He cited more demand from staff
members of the organization and their spouses and children for hospitals,
schools and other necessary facilities for daily life and leisure activities.
"All of them have to do with the service sector," Bahk said.
Experts
say that the GCF office will help bring in a huge amount of economic benefits to
Korea by housing hundreds of U.N. workers and holding about 120 international
meetings every year.
According to a report by the Korea Development
Institute, a state-run think tank, the hosting of the GCF office will bring
about 380 billion won (US$343.9 million) worth of economic effects every
year.
The hosting of the office will also require more workers armed
with financial expertise to manage such a huge fund that the GCF is going to
raise, Bahk said, underlining the need to nurture more people specializing in
the field.
The GCF seeks to raise $100 billion every year until 2020
to be spent on efforts aimed at slowing down or reversing climate change. The
fund is frequently regarded as the "World Bank" of the green growth and climate
change fronts.