South Korea accelerates plan to relocate government bodies outside Seoul

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On September 3, the South Korean government announced an accelerated plan to relocate additional government bodies, including a second presidential office and a legislative complex, to the administrative city of Sejong. Prime Minister Han Seong-sook stated that the move is intended to address the extreme regional imbalance in South Korea, where approximately half of the country’s 51 million people are concentrated in the Seoul metropolitan area. The government aims to finish the presidential office by August 2029 and the National Assembly building by 2033, as part of a strategy to mitigate the risk of population decline facing 57 percent of the nation's districts.

Consequences

The relocation initiative, supported by plans to move 350 public institutions by 2026, aims to distribute development away from a capital region that currently produces 53 percent of the national GDP. This effort aligns with large-scale private investments, such as the 800 trillion won chip hub in the southwest, to counter the demographic collapse and economic concentration threatening the nation's sustainable growth.

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