Gyeongbuk Province “Goal of attracting KRW 10 trillion in private investment, including cancer centers and hotels”

Gyeongbuk Province has set a goal of attracting 10 trillion won in private investment by 2026 using investment funds. Large-scale projects such as cancer centers, hotel resorts, science parks, and smarta farm towns will be promoted simultaneously through private investment and investment funds.

Gyeongbuk Province’s investment fund plans to raise 100 billion won on its own, even if it uses the government’s regional revitalization investment fund of 300 billion won as a parent fund. Through this, the public invests priming funds in large-scale projects needed in the region, and the private sector invests capital, pursuing both public interest and business feasibility.

According to Gyeongbuk Province on the 26th, the private investment revitalization strategy focuses on projects in four major fields. The four major projects are medical welfare, cultural tourism, agriculture, and industrial infrastructure. Although this field is an essential investment for local governments, it has faced difficulties due to insufficient budget to pursue it as a financial project and lack of business feasibility to pursue it with private capital alone.

Accordingly, in order to improve the level of medical welfare, Gyeongbuk Province is promoting a project to modernize public medical center facilities along with attracting a cancer center that has introduced the ‘heavy ion therapy device’, also known as the dream cancer treatment device. In addition, considering the reality that there are almost no hotels above 4 stars on the east coast of Gyeongbuk, we are actively working to attract hotels and resorts.

In the agricultural sector, smart farms and agricultural product distribution facilities, which were mainly promoted with public finances, will be utilized with private capital to create a smart farm town and attract agricultural product distribution and logistics centers in which large distributors participate. In the case of a smart farm town promoted by the private sector, the plan is to determine the crops to be grown in advance and confirm buyers, including food companies and distributors, to promote the project.

Industrial infrastructure first focuses on building dormitories for industrial complex workers. Gyeongbuk Province believes that there will be a lot of demand in other regions as the Gumi Industrial Complex worker dormitory construction project was recently selected as the first project of the government’s regional revitalization investment fund. Projects to expand energy infrastructure in the east coast area, such as hydrogen fuel power plants, will also be promoted as projects subject to investment funds.

To this end, Gyeongbuk Province presented five strategic tasks for funding, organization, human resources, systems, and governance. First, the province plans to secure funds worth 100 billion won by the end of the year to create the province’s own fund, the ‘Gyeongbuk Private Investment Revitalization Fund’. It is designed with a structure in which finance and private finance each invest 50%.

Gyeongbuk Province is also working to strengthen professional organizations and human resources dedicated to private investment. To strengthen private investment planning and operation functions, an organizational reorganization was carried out to establish the ‘Private Investment Activation Department’, which will operate from July. As the task is to apply financial techniques to private investment, we plan to hire financial experts, hold investment briefings, and organize expert working groups for each investment field to provide regular consulting.

We are also working to prepare laws, ordinances, and other systems that will lead to revitalizing private investment. We plan to propose the ‘Special Act to Support Local Private Investment Activation’ to the 22nd National Assembly to encourage its enactment, and enact the ‘Gyeongbuk Province Private Investment Activation Ordinance’, which includes prevention of disputes over preferential treatment and operational direction, and disseminate it to cities and counties. am.

The reason why Gyeongbuk Province is making a desperate effort to ‘vitalize private investment’ is because it believes that the poor investment reality in the region cannot be changed through existing local government financial projects. This is because local government financial projects require a long time to secure budgets and advance administrative procedures, making rapid investment difficult.

Gyeongbuk Province Governor Lee Cheol-woo said, “In order to change the local landscape, attracting private investment is essential,” and added, “We will support the role that the public can play as much as possible and allow local governments to lead their own administration.”