▲ Gimhae City Hall Panorama (Source: Gimhae City)

The briefing session for Gimhae City’s major initiatives in 2025, which began on November 11th, successfully concluded. Under the slogan "The Start of a Great Transition: Glocal City Gimhae," the five-day event aimed to set a direction for urban innovation, focusing on fostering talent through its glocal university and expanding the cultural content industry. Mayor Hong Tae-yong declared during the sessions, “We will set the upcoming year as the starting point for a great urban transformation movement,” and emphasized building a dynamic city through organic communication and collaboration among departments.

As a starting point, Gimhae successfully hosted three mega-events this year: the Korean National Sports Festival, the designation as an East Asia’s Cultural City for 2024, and the "2024 Visit Gimhae Year." In March, Gimhae changed its slogan and mascot and organized a dedicated task force team for the mega-events. This involved expanding the scope and diversity of promotional activities to enhance the city’s brand image. As a result, Gimhae attracted 3.5 million tourists this year, an increase of 1 million compared to last year.

Since last year, Gimhae City has actively supported the “Glocal University 30” project. “Glocal University 30” is a government run project that aims to select 30 non-metropolitan universities and nurture them into institutions that embrace regional and global boundaries. In particular, the concept called "All-City Campus," proposed by Gimhae City and Inje University during the preliminary evaluation phase, greatly contributed to Inje University’s selection. The “All-City Campus” envisions utilizing the entire city as an educational space. To realize this vision, Gimhae City and Inje University, established the "Gimhae Human Resource Development Foundation," an integrated governance body, and outlined plans to develop on site campus for specialized fields such as smart logistics, biohealth, future mobility, and social design. The Gimhae Chamber of Commerce and Industry also actively supported the planning stages, leading to Inje University’s recognition as a Glocal University in August for its innovation and strong public-private-academic cooperation.

Despite its series of successful initiatives, Gimhae is not resting on its laurels and plans to collaborate with Glocal Universities to devise sector-specific development plans and sustain its growth. In the industrial and economic sectors, the city aims to attract a Northeast Asia logistics platform to establish infrastructure for new growth industries, while promoting convergence between sectors. At the same time, efforts will be made to transition from the current manufacturing and heavy industry-focused structure. In the cultural and tourism sectors, initiatives such as creating “the Gyeongnam Cultural Content Innovation Valley,” pioneering nighttime tourism content, and establishing a unified management organization for the UNESCO World Heritage Gaya Tumuli, are underway. These efforts aim to retain the local youth population and foster new industries within the city.

The city also plans significant changes in safety, welfare, and healthcare. This includes modernizing disaster response manuals, building an integrated one-stop support system for childbirth, childcare, and caregiving, and establishing the Public Medical Center. Urban transportation will be improved through projects like establishing the metropolitan road network and shared parking spaces, while efforts to develop the agricultural and environmental sectors include improving labor structures and promoting anti-plastic policies.

Currently, Gyeongsangnam-do faces the dual challenges of the exodus of its youth population and stagnation in industrial innovation. In this context, Inje University's designation as a Glocal University marks a significant step toward demolishing the boundaries between local governments and universities to achieve mutual growth and sustainability. If Gimhae's efforts succeed, it could set a new precedent for regional development. Furthermore, Gyeongsangnam-do, hosting the highest number of Glocal Universities in the nation, is further increasing the potential for such challenges. This year, Gimhae achieved a remarkable milestone with an increase in the number of tourists. It is hoped that the city will further develop next year and establish itself as a successful model for urban transformation.

By Kim Min-seong, reporter  20221240@gs.cwnu.ac.kr

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