Incheon Focuses on Prep.
for Hosting World City Expo

Mayor Ahn says his government strives to finish IFEZ Development Project Phase 1 by 2009

Incheon Mayor Ahn Sang-soo said his municipal government will make a priority of the "flawless preparations"this year for hosting the World City Expo 2009 and the 2014 Asian Games.
In his New Year's message, Mayor Ahn said, "Incheon Metropolitan City will focus on the construction of a top-rated international business center in Northeast Asia and human-oriented urban construction though the renovation of the existing downtown boroughs with new urban designs and the expansion of culture, arts and sports infrastructure."Ahn said his government will strategically implement urban rehabilitation projects in order to relieve the imbalance among districts and restore the original functions of the existing, old boroughs.
Incheon Metropolitan City will push ahead with projects to construct Incheon New Port, which broke ground this past December, expand North Port and Inner Port and build backwater-area roads in order to raise the logistics competitiveness of Incheon Port, he said.
Looking back at 2007, he said, Incheon Metropolitan City accomplished a great feat: winning the hosting rights to the 2014 Asian Games.
With the inauguration of the new central government, he said, his city government will concentrate all their administrative capability, along with the citizens, to launch a drive to build up the foundation for its leap toward becoming a global top-10 city by 2020.
"We will make the top priority of the city's 2008 administrative goals on preparing for hosting the World City Expo in 2009. The Expo will be held with all of Incheon's competitive factors available: the participation of its citizens and its strongest point, the ubiquitous city infrastructure,"Ahn said.
"Incheon's hosting of the Expo will have long-lasting social and economic spill-over effects."Mayor Ahn said Incheon Metropolitan City will finalize a plan at an early date to construct the venues for the 2014 Asian Games and athletes'village and present a stage-by-stage roadmap. He said the preparations for hosting the Games will be "flawless"with the support of the central government.
The mayor noted that the competitive edge of each city becomes the barometer of that of each country and its economy as "we are entering an era of 'Glurbanization'in which competition among nations is shifting into competition among cities."Ahn said his city government will accelerate its efforts to complete the first phase of a project to complete the Incheon Free Economic Zone by 2009, which is designed to make the nation's first FEZ a business hub of Northeast Asia and create new growth engines.
GM Daewoo's R&D Center, to be dedicated during 2008 in the Cheongna District, part of the Incheon Free Economic Zone, will result in the creation of 500 new R&D jobs. The municipal government aims to become "Robot Land"with the goal of becoming the Mecca of the domestic robot industry, he said.
Incheon finished a project to reclaim an area covering 6.51 sq. km in Songdo International City in a bid to establish a foundation for building a high-tech industrial cluster for collaboration among industrial and academic research circles.
The 151-story Incheon Tower project, which will break ground this year, will be one of Incheon's landmarks, he said.
With the opening of the Songdo ConvensiA, a soon-to-be mecca of convention, and the New Songdo City International School (NSCIS) slated for this year, Ahn said, Incheon will emerge as a center of international conventions and international education. nw

Incheon Mayor Ahn Sang-soo