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Busan’s Strategies for Sustainable Development

 

Mayor Hur, Nam-sik of Busan Metropolitan City, Republic of Korea

 

The end of the fossil fuel era and the environmental issues confronting us today areglobal challenges facing us all. Addressing these major issues of our time, Busan City is implementing these and many other measures to achieve the holy grail of ‘sustainable development,’ for the future well-being of our citizens and our nation.

 

 

By the time the Korean War ended in 1953, South Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world. The entire land was devastated by the war with the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita standing at a meager US$ 67. From the 1960s to the 1980s, however, the country achieved remarkable economic growth and has now become the world’s 13th largest economy.

 

Behind the economic growth that took the world by surprise was the power of Busan. As the biggest port city on the Korean Peninsula, Busan has long played an indispensible role in driving Korea forward as a leading trading nation of the world. It was the engine room of the national economy for many years by developing many manufacturing industries, including footwear, timber, steel and petrochemical businesses and served as a bridgehead for importing raw materials and exporting finished products by developing its container port. All the citizens of Busan, therefore, take great pride in the city’s history and its contribution to national economic growth. 

 

Today, however, people have begun to express different views. Citizens prefer industries that enhance the quality of life while still generating profits, over the bulky smokestack manufacturing industry. What industries, then, can meet the changing needs of the people by developing the economy while maintaining a pleasant urban environment? The culture and tourism industry, the high-tech medical industry and the new and renewable energy industry are three areas that Busan City is now focusing on.

 

We are now expending a great deal of effort in developing our cultural industry as a whole and, in particular, the movie industry. Building on the great success of the Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF), which has now become the most prestigious film festival in Asia, Busan continues to promote the nation’s cinema industry, making Busan not just the venue for the film festival but a city that generate huge profits from its overall film industry.

 

With the completion of the Busan Post Production Facility last year, Busan is now capable of offering a one-stop solution for film production, from planning to shooting to post production. Released last year to great acclaim, Tracing Shadow directed by Francis Ng Chun-Yu was completed at the Busan Post-Production Facility. The world-famous Chinese director Tsui Hark’s Detective Dee and Cydeokebarai, a Taiwanese blockbuster with an $8.1 million budget, are currently being produced here.

In addition, Busan City has been building a Busan Cultural Contents Complex, where the development of film, drama and animations contents will be concentrated. To surpass the reputation of the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, a building dedicated to hosting the Cannes Film Festival in France, construction work to build a PIFF-dedicated Busan Cinema Center is also underway. Based on all these efforts, I have every confidence that Busan will firmly establish itself as “Hollywood in Asia” sooner rather than later.

 

Another strategic area for the city’s future progress is the medical tourism sector. Busan City is becoming a world-famous tourism destination, attracting more than 2 million visitors every year. It is also an advanced medical city offering state-of-the-art medical facilities and modern medical technologies. Combining these two strengths, Busan is making great efforts to develop its medical tourism industry.

 

One of the main thoroughfares of Seomyeon, “Seomyeon Medical Street” is currently being established, where foreign patients can enjoy easy access to medical services with interpretation and many other services guaranteeing the utmost convenience. At the same time, we are expanding the tourism infrastructure and programs linked with these medical services. A heavy ion medical accelerator, the so-called “cancer treatment dream machine,” of which there are only a few anywhere in the world, is soon to arrive in Busan. Our initial goal is to attract more patients from China and Japan, our closest neighbors.

 

According to a report published by McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm, the worldwide medical tourism market was worth US$ 60 billion in 2007, but the market is expected to grow 70% to reach US$ 100 billion by 2012. Amidst this medical tourism boom, Busan hopes to emerge as a world-renowned healthcare destination like Thailand or Singapore.

 

Along with the film and medical tourism industries, nuclear power constitutes another pillar of Busan’s strategic industries. At the end of last year, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak flew to the United Arab Emirates to help win one of the world's biggest nuclear power plant contracts. As many countries had been eyeing this contract, South Korea's success catapulted it into the limelight, and presents a great opportunity for Korea to generate huge wealth and become one of the world’s major nuclear power generation players.

It is Busan where Korea’s nuclear facilities and technologies are concentrated. There are currently four nuclear reactors in Gijang, Busan and four more are under construction. When two more units, now being planned, are added in the near future, Busan will be best positioned to become home to the world’s biggest nuclear power cluster. Based on these favorable conditions, Busan City has been working on the creation of a nuclear medical and science complex for the southeastern part of Korea, bringing together relevant research facilities in the Gijang area of Busan.

 

The Nuclear Medical and Science Complex promises to become an important center in driving innovative technology not only for the medical sector utilizing radiological technologies but also for many other related industries, such as the food and environment sectors, which will have huge ripple effects on the economy.

 

In addition to strategically promoting these clean industries, we are putting strong emphasis on making the overall urban area of Busan environmentally friendly and pleasant, a veritable “green city.” Green areas and parks are being expanded and once-polluted waterways are being restored as eco-rivers across the city. By creating more walking trails and bicycle lanes, we are encouraging people to choose to walk or cycle instead of commuting by car.

 

At the spotlight at the moment is the city’s project to transform the huge tract of land where the U.S. camp used to be stationed over the last 50 years into a world-class citizens’ park. The Camp Hialeah site located at the heart of the downtown occupies 528,000㎡of prime land, yet Busan City decided to transform the Camp Hialeah site into a top-class public park. In a few years, this site promises to become an attractive urban park that can stand comparison with Central Park in New York.

 

The end of the fossil fuel era and the environmental issues confronting us today are global challenges facing us all. Addressing these major issues of our time, Busan City is implementing these and many other measures to achieve the holy grail of ‘sustainable development,’ for the future well-being of our citizens and our nation.