Choo Mi-ae, the Democratic Party of Korea's candidate for Gyeonggi Province governor, on Tuesday dismissed the "Establishment of Gyeonggi North Special Self-Governing Province," a flagship policy of incumbent Gyeonggi Governor Kim Dong-yeon during his current term, as "an already outdated pledge."
Appearing on MBC Radio's "Kim Jong-bae's Focus of Attention" Tuesday morning, Choo said, "Among pledges, there are cases where one turns out to be wrong, and cases where they are withdrawn indirectly. I believe this pledge has been indirectly withdrawn by not being realized during his tenure."
Choo said, "The Lee Jae-myung government is seeking ways to expand self-governing regions under a '5 Mega-Regions and 3 Special Zones' framework, connecting infrastructure together so regions can achieve a win-win outcome." She added, "Dividing Gyeonggi Province into southern and northern provinces is difficult because the area is so vast and there are various disparities between the southern and northern regions."
"What the northern region needs is jobs," Choo said. "We have a plan to develop high-tech industries centered on aerospace MRO (maintenance, repair, and operations), and to utilize the broad returned public lands as testbeds or demonstration complexes."
Kim had championed the establishment of the Gyeonggi North Special Self-Governing Province as a flagship pledge since his days as a candidate in the last local elections. After taking office, he set up a separate task force and devoted efforts to the initiative. However, friction with the Yoon Suk-yeol government stalled progress, and President Lee Jae-myung himself, going back to his days as the Democratic Party leader, consistently took a negative stance, saying that "implementing the division without measures for Gyeonggi North's finances would very likely reduce it to the level of Gangwon's western region." This had cast doubt on the plan's feasibility.
