Innovative Koland
Moving fast to take charge of administrative city
project and build innovative cities

Last year was very significant for President Kim Jae-hyun of the Korea Land Corp. It was the 30th founding anniversary year for Koland, and the Koland president observed his initial year at the company. But more importantly, it was the year the company completed the preparation for the construction of an administrative city and 10 reform cities around the country, which are a core national objective of the participatory government led by President Roh Moo-hyun.
President Kim promised that the company will move fast to provide services that people want this being the initial year for an effort to accomplish those objectives. The company already has been buying land from land owners in the projected administrative complex city from December 20 last year, a key role in the gigantic government project.
The company came up with a variety of sizes for residential house models in compensating the owners of land to fit their needs including apartments, block-type collective residential lots, independent residential houses, among others, so that the land owners can choose how they want to be compensated for their land.
He made a great change in the company's personnel policy. He appointed a technical expert as head of the personnel department and in turn, named a non-technician to head the environment transportation department to tear down the personnel walls in the company in an unprecedented move. He is at the forefront of the work to build reform cities around the country to balance national development.
President Kim is also paying a great deal of attention on works related to the Gaesung Industrial Complex in North Korea, especially that on the first stage project of the complex, saying that the complex is one of the core projects of inter-Korean cooperation, which will trigger a flourishing exchange between the divided Koreas.
He said he is the first president to be promoted from inside the company and therefore, expectations run high on him with the company having many important projects to carry out.
Koland was named to undertake the administration city project in May of last year in competition with rival firms including the Korea Housing Corp. The project needed an undertaker who can complete it under an overall tight plan in light of the importance of the work to the nation and the government. Koland won the project due to its tract record for developing new cities including Bundang, Pyeongchon, Ilsan and Dongtan, its capacity to mobilize large amounts of funds with an excellent workforce. The new city will be built on a 2.2 million pyeong land with half million population to make room for 12 ministries, four sub-ministries and 2 government offices.
Koland will take charge of a number of key work in the project including the acquisition of land from land owners at appropriate prices, drawing up a plan to undertake the construction including infrastructure, and the supply of land for the construction of complexes around the new city.
President Kim said the project is well on its way to proceed as planned now that the Constitutional Court ruled that the project to build a new administrative city away from Seoul is within the legal boundary and the government finally selected the Yeongi-Gongju area as the location for the new city. Koland plans to make the city a center for administrative function with self-satisfactory capability, with a pleasant environment in harmony between nature and humans where culture and high technology meet to form a culture-information city. Building future cities is one of the key objectives of Koland, installing digital facilities including ubiquitous high-tech communication network in those cities to make available all kinds of information and data immediately to the residents in those cities.
The Koland CEO said Koland completed its work to build a plant complex of 28.000 pyeong in the North Korean industrial park and 11 South Korean firms operate plants there employing 4,000 North Korean workers. The company is building another park with 50,000 pyeong in size in the park to allow 17 South Korean firms to set up operations there to produce textile, clothes, leather, bags, and shoes, among others. By next year, some 300 South Korean firms are expected to operate plants in the park employing some 70,000 North Korean workers. It is an outstanding sample of the marriage between South Korean capital and technology and North Korea's manpower and land, President Kim said. nw

President Kim Jae-hyun of the Korea Land Corp.