YONHAP NEWS

Lee plans to visit countryside to monitor public opinions: official

SEOUL, Nov. 29 (Yonhap) -- President Lee Myung-bak plans to tour southern provinces this week to monitor public opinions on key national issues, including his decision to drop a plan to move parts of the government to a new administrative town under construction in central South Korea, a presidential aide said Sunday.

   Citing inefficiency, Lee, in a major reversal of his position, announced Friday that he was scrapping a plan to move about a dozen government ministries and agencies out of Seoul to Sejong City under construction in South Chungcheong province.

   Lee instead proposed that the envisaged city be made a hub of science and technology that can be self-sufficient with all needed infrastructure in place.

   Opposition parties, aligned with disgruntled residents in Chungcheong and other areas, including Gyeongsang and Jeolla provinces, vowed to block Lee's plan.

   "President Lee will this week travel to Gyeongsang and Jeolla provinces to better collect public opinions," said Lee Dong-kwan, senior presidential secretary for public information.

   "The president is ready to communicate with the people with an open-minded attitude. But he will sternly abide by principles in dealing with all inter-Korean and social issues."

   In a nationally televised town hall meeting on Friday, President Lee apologized for social conflict and confusion caused by his government's decision to call off the Sejong City project, saying that a reversal of the new administrative town project will be beneficial to the nation and the people.

   The Lee administration recently launched a government-private committee to draw up an alternative plan for Sejong through public hearings and other consensus-building procedures.

   Initiated by former President Roh Moo-hyun as an election campaign pledge in 2002, the Sejong City project calls for moving nine ministries and four government agencies to Sejong, about 160 kilometers south of Seoul.

   Since its inauguration in early 2008, however, the Lee administration has been looking to downsize the relocation project, calling a regional division of the government "inefficient."

   The ruling Grand National Party said Sunday that 47.5 percent of the people positively evaluated the president's remarks at the town hall meeting, citing its own poll of 4,400 citizens nationwide.

   The government party also said 50.1 percent of the respondents supported Lee's plan to revise the Sejong City project, while 39.3 percent expressed opposite views.

   On the other hand, Chung Sye-kyun, chairman of the main opposition Democratic Party, declared that his party will launch an all-out campaign to fight Lee's decision to cancel the Sejong administrative town project.

   "We will never tolerate President Lee's plan to nullify a plan to build a new administrative town in Sejong," Chung said at a news conference.
(END)