Direction & Strategy
for Promotion
of the Jeju Free International City
Development Project

By Jin Chul-hoon, President of the Jeju Free International City Development Center

Since the 1960s, the government has focused on the development of Jeju Island as a special international zone through six overall development plans so far, whose main design, was to develop an airport, harbors, highways, and tourism resorts key infrastructure on the southernmost island of Korea.
Its been more than 40 years since the government set its eyes on the development of the island, but the government still has a long way to go because the island is still short of internationally competitive tourism-leisure facilities, uncompetitive in prices and foreign languages not in wide use on the island, among others, to show satisfactory results from the government's stand point.
In order to overcome these shortcomings, the government set up "Jeju Free International City Development Promotion Committee"directly under the Prime Minister's Office in 2001 with the Prime Minister heading it as chairman. The committee drew up a comprehensive plan to develop the island's potential to be a free international city. The committee also renamed the existing Jeju Free International City Special Law, along with seven leading projects to pave the way for Jeju to become a free international city. The Ministry of Construction and Transportation set up the Jeju Free International City Development Center to take charge of those projects.
In a nutshell, the government intends to develop the island as a hub in Northeast Asia where people, commodities, and capital can move freely by 2011 and make it a base for the country's liberalization as well as improving the welfare and income for the residents of the island.
Three major policies to develop Jeju as a base for liberalization in Northeast Asia, featuring indigenous culture of the semi-tropical island have been drawn up recently. The first one is to develop the island as an environmentally-friendly tourism-leisure resort. In order to make the island a global tourism-leisure town, the development plan calls for making the most of the island's beauty and historic legacies and then mix them with the latest world tourism trends. Looking at the development plan in detail, one can learn that it is broken into a number of sectors including the compound for leisure-tourism complexes, leisure-type residential complex, a theme park, shopping malls, duty-free shops, convention facilities to attract tourists.
Reductions in golf course fees and lodging expenses are in the plan to lower tourism expenses for tourists coming to the island. The development of the fashion industry is also included in the plan to boost the resort's international competitive edge.
The second one is building facilities for business and high-tech knowledge, logistics, and financial service to give a multiple functional mechanism to the island. The plan also calls for the relaxation of immigration regulations for easier visits to the island for foreign tourists, and the expansion of foreign language services which make it easier for foreigners and the operation of the Jeju investment promotion zone to give incentives to foreign investors.
The plan also calls for the construction of a Science-Technology complex on the island with IT-BT professional education organizations to foster the development of the high-tech knowledge industry.
The third one is designed to raise income for residents on the island so that they can lead their community to give their island an international feel. A special training will be provided to the residents so that they can get jobs as part of the government's effort to expand jobs on the island. The plan also will provide support to companies to expand the number of jobs and launch companies doing business on the island. The ultimate aim is to boost the income of the islanders. The seven largest leading projects are designed to make the island a tourism, high-tech knowledge industry, logistics and finance that will give multifunction to the island so that it will be a wholesome free international city. The nucleus to the projects include 5 projects related to the construction of tourism-leisure facilities and two in the areas of business and high-tech industry, which will be financed with private funds and public funds, if necessary.
Of those projects, the high-tech science technology complex, recuperation-type residential complex, and the myth-history park have been begun successfully from last year with visible results, following the ground-breaking on June 11 last year for those projects. The Science-Technology Complex being built in Ara-dong in Jeju City in a government industrial complex will have research facilities for IT, BT industries, along with professional graduate schools, foreign schools, and others to be developed as a base for cooperation among industry, academics, and research, especially in conjunction with Jeju University and Jeju Industry Information College. The projects are designed to make the complexes a growth engine for the next generation.
A world-class leisure-resort complex is being promoted in Yeorae-dong in Seguipo city, taking into consideration the island's special surrounding and nature. The project will involve the construction of vacation houses, hospitals, and resort hotels and condos and sports facility and work on building the projects is likely to start in the second half of this year with a MOA signed with Hong Kong's AL Co. for investment up to $200 million.
The region surrounding Seogwang-ri in Candok-myon in South Jeju County will build a theme park featuring myth and history of the island. The project is being discussed with U.S. and Hong Kong investors to promote the cultural legacy of the unique island in Korea. Intensive negotiations are being held with Paramount of the United States, along with the reimbursement of the land to land owners in the region to launch the construction of the project in the first half of next year.
I made three major management promises when I took over the center as its third president in March of last year; First was to have close cooperation with the local community. As movement in this direction, the center relocated its head office to the island on April 27. Second was the development of environmentally friendly management because the clean nature that Jeju has will be a great asset in making the island a very competitive international resort. Third was to create harmony between public and private interest. We have to break away from government-initiated development strategies and switch to those that have the support of Jeju residents whose outcomes can be shared jointly with the residents. This is a new paradigm of development in the 21st century.
Looking back at the island's history, many development plans for the island were laid out in the past 10 years, but nothing has been accomplished. I feel nothing was achieved because the plans failed to secure the consensus of the residents. Our travel toward building a free international city is going to be rough with series of problems and difficulties. The key factor is the attitude of everyone that is involved. We have to be able to understand everyone's position and pool the strengths together and when we do that, we will able to leave to our descendants the proud jewel of Korea, the Jeju Island. nw

Jin Chul-hoon, president of the Jeju Free International City Development Center.