▲ Mayor Joo Kwang-deok

Namyangju City mayor Kwangdeok Joo has been working day and night since he took the office July 2022 to create a mega city where 1 million people live, work and rest. PowerKorea sat down and heard about his hard work in Q&A.

 

Q. How have you made yourself busy for the past 2 years?

A. I have focused on how I can turn this city into a mega city since I grabbed the steering wheel. I makes me happy to imaging 1 million people live self sufficient. For this, I have paid attention to where improvement is needed every nook and corner of the city and listened attentively to the citizens. Besides, I have met officials of the government organizations and politicians when it comes to prosperity of the city.

 

Q. You recently reshuffled the office. What is your goal?

A. I took transportation, welfare and culture into consideration when reorganizing the office. We will work more efficiently than before. Our future city team will focus on inviting and promoting cutting edge industry alongside a medical town, balanced development and urbanization. We also improved the way we communicate with citizens and increased speed of integrated administration services especially for the hassling licensing procedures.

 

Q. Tell us some of the core projects this year.

A. We are working on GTX-B and Byeolnae lines passing the city and also opening of the Namyangju-Pocheon and the national highway number 98 as early as possible. For this, we are currently running a task force team who will manage the road and traffic facilities. Meanwhile, we are pushing forward creating of a cutting edge industrial complex where bio, medical, new material, IT and AI businesses converge.

 

Q. We learned that the city’s instant-respond system receive high praise.

A. We call it 8572. It was introduced to respond quickly to civil complaints. Last year alone, it helped solve 99% of the complaints by settling down 1079 cases out of 1092. The quick repair team also repaired 49 damaged facilities in no time. This is the result of organic cooperation between the teams and citizens and we won a runner up prize at an administrative audit of local governments last August. 

 

Q. We also learned you are building Wang Suk new town.

A. The town is set to complete in 2028. The 11 million square meter land will see 66,000 households and the move-in will start late 2026 until early 2027. The town will have a cutting edge business complex as well as a cultural complex withe necessary transportation facilities.

 

Q. Tell us about the city’s young startup center.

A. We opened the young startup center June 2021. The rent is only around 50,000 won to 100,000 won a month. They are provided with startup consulting where necessary information and tools are shared. 25 out of 32 young startups actually opened business. We will keep working on this. 

 

Q. What is the city’s education policy?

A. I spent hard time growing up as my father passed away early and we depended on mother’s income. However, I never gave up my dream, passion and action to be here today. I know very well about young people like me and this is the reason that I value highly of education for the disadvantaged. As part of this effort, we pay a visit to schools every now and then to learn what we need to improve and provide.

 

Q. We learned that you run Namyangju FC.

A. The city used to have one but was disbanded in 2012 due to a financial issue. It was one of my pledges to bring it up again. I and the 79 people in the same mind funded money to establish a corporation last July.

 

Q. What is your plan in the year 2024?

A. We are facing prolonged economic downturn and revenue shortage that block the growth of the city. But problems means challenges. I and the city’s 2,600 staff members will gather our strength to make that happen and create Namyangju a better and more livable city in the nation. 740,000 people currently live and work in the city but we target to increase the number to 1 million.

임병권 기자  limbk1229@daum.net