Facing the Population Cliff Crisis... Yeongju City Goes 'All In' to Secure Local Extinction Response Fund

Commencement of Investment Plan Establishment Service, Development of Region-Specific Population Inflow Strategy

Yeongju City Hall.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Yong-woo] Yeongju City, Gyeongbuk Province, is breaking through the crisis of the population cliff and embarking on establishing a proactive response strategy for new growth.

On the 22nd, according to Yeongju City, an explanatory meeting was held to start the service for establishing an investment plan to secure the Local Extinction Response Fund, and 27 team members from related departments participated to discover tasks by department.

The Local Extinction Response Fund is a resource to respond to the decrease in local population, supporting a total of 10 trillion KRW over 10 years with 1 trillion KRW annually from 2022, focusing on 89 local governments designated as population decline areas by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety in October last year.

For basic local governments, the fund supports up to 16 billion KRW annually (as of 2023) for population decline areas, and up to 4 billion KRW annually (as of 2023) for interest areas.

Yeongju City, designated as a population decline area, along with 18 other local governments in the province (16 population decline areas, 2 interest areas), will receive differential support based on the evaluation results of the investment plan.

In 2022, up to 12 billion KRW will be supported for population decline areas and up to 3 billion KRW for interest areas.

Yeongju City has started the service to secure a high evaluation score and establish a substantial investment plan. Based on local conditions and analysis, it plans to discover projects in various fields such as jobs and economy, corporate support, education, culture and tourism, and residential environment improvement to prepare customized population vitality measures for the region.

Also, with the Vice Mayor as the head, the Population Policy TF Team will build a collaborative system among departments and focus all efforts on evaluation through regular meetings and securing performance-oriented resources.

The investment plan through this service is a two-year plan (2022?2023), which will be submitted to Gyeongbuk Province by May, then after evaluation and review by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, the fund will be finalized and distributed in August.

Vice Mayor Kang Sung-ik said, “We will do our best to discover the most effective and practical investment plans to secure the maximum amount of the Local Extinction Response Fund, induce population inflow, and revitalize the region.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.