On April 24, Governor Kim applied for the exclusive The Gyeonggi Pass card from his office through a card company’s app on his smartphone, saying, “On April 24, the long-awaited acceptance of applications for The Gyeonggi Pass began. I came to work today and applied for the card before doing anything else… I hope provincial residents will also apply for The Gyeonggi Pass and enjoy its many benefits.”

The Gyeonggi Pass extends the K-Pass limit of 60 rides per month to unlimited rides and reimburses 20% of monthly public transportation expenses (30% for young adults in their 20s and 30s, 20% for those over 40, and 53% for low-income individuals). The threshold for young adults eligible for the 30% discount has also been expanded from 19-34 to 19-39. However, the cardholder needs to use it at least 15 times to qualify for the discount.

The pass covers all modes of public transportation nationwide, including metropolitan buses, the Shinbundang subway line, as well as more expensive modes of public transportation such as the GTX (Great Train Express), which began service in March this year. It’s also a reimbursement system, so card holders do not need to recharge the card every month after the initial registration. However, transportation that requires a separate ticket, such as highway buses and the KTX, are not eligible for reimbursements.

Provincial residents who wish to use The Gyeonggi Pass can obtain a K-Pass-only card (credit/debit card) from the K-Pass website (www.korea-pass.kr) or from individual credit card company websites (Shinhan, KB, NH, Woori, Hana, Samsung, Hyundai, BC, IBK, Kwangju Bank, K-Bank, Go Joy, DGB U Pay) and register on the K-Pass website from May 1.

The acceptance of applications for the card began on April 24. When signing up, the applicant’s address will be automatically verified; if confirmed as a resident of Gyeonggi Province, the applicant will automatically receive the benefits of The Gyeonggi Pass.

This is the second time the two have met. During his visit to Liaoning Province last October, Governor Kim met with Party Secretary Hao to discuss cooperation between the two regions. Governor Kim actively requested that Party Secretary Hao visit Gyeonggi Province at that time, and the visit took place more than six months later.

“It is so good to see you again. Six months ago, I said that we became friends after our first meeting, and I’m happy to see that our friendship has deepened and the relationship between Gyeonggi Province and Liaoning Province has become even stronger… I hope we will remain friends for a long time and do more for China and Korea,” said Governor Kim, expressing his happiness.

“I am pleased to see the progress made on the issues we discussed six months ago. With today’s in-depth cooperation agreement, I look forward to further cooperation between Liaoning Province and Gyeonggi Province,” he added.

“This is the first visit by a Party Secretary of Liaoning Province in over 10 years. I was so impressed by the hospitality,” Party Secretary Hao responded. “I hope to further strengthen the 31 years of achievements between Liaoning Province and Gyeonggi Province, and take cooperation in the fields of economy, science, trade, industry, culture and humanities to the next level.”

Party Secretary Hao then officially invited Governor Kim to attend the Summer Davos Forum to be held in Dalian City, Liaoning Province, in June and the Liaoning Province Trade and Investment Expo in September, asserting “We sincerely hope you will attend.”

On the same day, the two leaders signed an agreement to deepen exchanges and cooperation between Gyeonggi Province and Liaoning Province, including improving the business environment for enterprises, expanding investment and business cooperation, strengthening exchanges and cooperation between enterprises and institutions in industries such as manufacturing, scientific and technological innovation and modern agriculture, and expanding cultural, sports, tourism and educational exchanges.

Following the signing of the agreement to deepen cooperation, an agricultural science and technology exchange agreement and a university exchange agreement were signed. Sung Je-hoon, Director of the Agricultural Technology Institute of Gyeonggi Province, and Sui Guomin, Director of the Agricultural Sciences Institute of Liaoning Province, agreed to expand joint research on cultivation and pest control technologies, agricultural products and soil safety, and also to promote information and people-to-people exchanges between the two organizations. Lim Kyung-sook, President of Suwon University, and Zhao Hengxin, Secretary of the Shenyang Conservatory of Music, signed a university-level agreement to promote student and faculty exchanges, music and art performances, and academic exchanges between the two schools.

After the meeting, the Party Secretary and accompanying members of the Liaoning delegation, the Chinese Ambassador to Korea, the Chair of the Gyeonggi Provincial Assembly and members of Gyeonggi’s business, cultural and academic communities attended a dinner to strengthen cooperation between Gyeonggi Province and Liaoning Province.

“Liaoning Province has been a long-time friend of Gyeonggi Province and the Gyeonggi Provincial Assembly, and the Gyeonggi Provincial Assembly has maintained close ties with Liaoning Province since the establishment of parliamentary friendship ties 30 years ago… Exchanges and cooperation between the governments and legislative bodies of the two provinces will be a driving force for the common development of Korea and China and the happiness of their peoples,” said Yeom Jong-hyun, Chair of the Gyeonggi Provincial Assembly, who attended the dinner.

Gyeonggi Province established a sisterhood relationship with Liaoning Province in 1993, the year after the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Korea. Since then, it has been actively engaged in collaboration initiatives such as the establishment of the Gyeonggi Business Center (GBC) in Shenyang, the capital city of Liaoning Province, to support the export marketing of Gyeonggi’s small and medium-sized enterprises. Gyeonggi has also engaged in tourism exchanges, inviting the Liaoning Ballet to perform, and exchanging officials. In January of this year, Governor Kim met with Liaoning Governor Li Leqing at the Davos Forum to discuss ways to further bilateral cooperation.

This year, various exchange and cooperation events will be held, including a promotional tour for Liaoning provincial government and tourism industry representatives to promote Gyeonggi Province tourism in June, a tri-regional youth sports exchange tournament between Gyeonggi Province, Liaoning Province and Kanagawa Prefecture in August, and an exhibition of artifacts from the Liaoning Provincial Museum in December.

Now in its fifth year, the Gyeonggi Foreign Social Media Reporter Corps was launched in 2020 with three languages – Chinese, Vietnamese, and Russian – and has since grown to five languages, with Thai added in 2021 and Cambodian in 2022. Married immigrants, workers, and international students participate in this corps to provide foreign residents of Gyeonggi Province with information they need to settle in the province.

The 5th Reporters Corps consists of 30 foreigners from seven countries – Thailand, Cambodia, Kazakhstan, China, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Russia – who live in Gyeonggi Province. In terms of languages, there were seven Russian speakers, seven Vietnamese speakers, seven Chinese speakers, five Khmer speakers and four Thai speakers.

The reporters will cover key policies related to foreigners in Korea and share information through social media platforms such as Facebook, blogs, and Instagram.

“The reporter corps serves as a communication channel for foreign residents, covering various topics such as local festivals and events, information on counseling and support, and real-time local news such as disasters,” said Kum Chul-wan, Director General of the Labor Bureau of Gyeonggi Province. “Gyeonggi Province aims to play a role in quickly providing information needed by foreign residents.”

Meanwhile, 1,488 items were created for the official reporter corps channel last year with 187,007 total views to date.

The contactless (“tagless”) bus fare payment service uses Bluetooth wireless communication between beacons installed on vehicles and passenger smartphones to determine whether they are getting on or off the bus. This system has been operating on buses in the Korean capital region since 2021.

To use the service, passengers install a tagless pay app on their smartphones and register pre-paid and post-paid transit cards, which are automatically processed and debited without the need to “tag” a transit card terminal when boarding or exiting the bus.

Before a passenger exits the bus, they can tap the app’s “Mobile Stop Bell” button to alert the driver that a passenger wants to exit the bus, eliminating the need to manually ring a stop bell or get up from their seat.

A tagless sticker on the exterior of the vehicle informs passengers if the bus is tagless-enabled before boarding, and an icon is displayed in the geolocation service of the Gyeonggi Bus Information App also indicates whether the bus is tagless-enabled.

When traveling on or transferring between buses or trains that do not offer this service, you can still tap (“tag”) your card on the terminal to pay fares and receive transfer discounts.

“We plan to implement the service in Yongin and Uijeongbu and expand it to other regions from the second half of this year,” said Yoon Tae-wan, Director of the Bus Policy Division of Gyeonggi Province. “We also plan to introduce a safe ride home service that sends tagless payment information to parents.”

The company supporting this service, EZL Co., Ltd., is running a promotional event for the tagless system, offering a KRW 300 discount per ride with no limit on the number of rides, as well as a 100% discount for the first tagless payment, and prize draws proportional to the number of payments.

Detailed information can be found through the ‘Tagless Pay-App.’ Other inquiries can be directed to the EZL Call Center (1644-0006).

BCCIE promotes the curriculum of BC educational institutions around the world and works with the BC government to host various events and activities related to international education.

The Gyeonggi representatives discussed various educational programs of the Gyeonggi Future Education Paju Campus, including visits by BC students, as well as various educational cooperation measures for students in the province, including student exchanges and visits to institutions, aimed at the future promotion of the Gyeonggi Youth Ladder Program in Canada.

On the day of their visit, BCCIE officials proposed exchange and cooperation projects such as participation in the BC International Education Conference in June and joining the University Mobility in Asia-Pacific (UMAP) project in Gyeonggi Province.

“Today’s discussion is part of the Action Plan signed between Gyeonggi Province and British Columbia last May, and we will continue to discuss joint proposals through the formation and operation of inter-institutional working groups. We hope that this meeting will further deepen the understanding and friendship between the two regions,” said Park Keon-Kyun, Director General of the Continuing Education Office of Gyeonggi Province.

“We are pleased to have the opportunity to build on the sisterhood we established in 2008,” said Randall Martin, BCCIE Executive Director. “We look forward to discussing the many ways in which we can strengthen educational cooperation between Gyeonggi and BC to better serve students in both countries.”

Since signing their sisterhood agreement in 2008, Gyeonggi Province and BC have signed four action plans for cooperation in the fields of economy, education, culture, disaster prevention and safety, and climate change mitigation. They have actively engaged in exchanges through such initiatives such as the dispatch of Gyeonggi government officials to BC, participation in partnership events, and the signing of policy exchange agreements in the field of transportation.
 

Through to April 19, Gyeonggi Province is recruiting companies to participate in the “2024 Gyeonggi Carbon Border Tax Response Consultation,” and will hold related training and briefing sessions at the Gyeonggi Regional SMEs and Startups Agency on April 26 and 29.

The CBAM is a type of trade tariff imposed by the EU on imported products with high associated carbon emissions. It was piloted in October last year and, from this year, companies exporting to the EU will have to report carbon emissions by product on a quarterly basis. It applies to companies exporting steel, cement, electricity, fertilizer, aluminum, hydrogen and more to the EU.

Until 2025, there is only an emissions reporting obligation, but from 2026, emissions verification as well as the purchase and submission of CBAM certificates will be required. Accordingly, advance preparation is essential for exporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and proactive responses are required not only from producers of the six major items currently monitored, but also from SMEs related to organic chemicals and plastic items that will become subject to monitoring.

The “2024 Gyeonggi Carbon Border Tax Response Consultation” prepared by Gyeonggi Province is divided into Type A (capacity building) and Type B (countermeasures for the six major CBAM industries) so as to support the type of CBAM application.

In addition, the “Visiting Pre-diagnosis Service for Carbon Neutrality Responses,” being implemented for the first time this year, will visit SMEs that have insufficient time and information to adapt to the CBAM. This service will determine response levels and provide information on related support projects as well as domestic and international trends free of charge throughout the year in order to improve CBAM awareness and response capabilities among SMEs in Gyeonggi Province.

Training sessions on SME ESG supply chain management, regulatory responses, and CBAM trends and responses for SMEs will be held on April 26 and 29. Training and briefing sessions on Carbon Border Tax responses will be held both online and offline by region throughout the year. For more information and to register, please visit the Gyeonggi FTA Center website at ggfta.or.kr.

Last year, Gyeonggi Province and the Gyeonggi FTA Center supported a total of 625 companies with training and briefings on “Carbon Border Tax and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Management,” providing advice on carbon emission calculations to help SMEs in Gyeonggi Province proactively respond to changes in global carbon regulations.

“There is an urgent need for SMEs in Gyeonggi Province to prepare practical responses to emerging international changes in the trading environment, such as carbon border tax and ESG… We will actively support them to become carbon-competitive by providing timely information and close consultation so as to gain an edge in the global carbon market,” said Lee Min-woo, Director of the Investment and Trade Division of Gyeonggi Province.

In addition to FTA consulting, the Gyeonggi FTA Center also provides FTA/trade education and briefings, online platform entry support, as well as CPNP and Halal certification, and export consultations on non-tariff barriers, and operates global supply chain (GVC) support projects. For more information on related initiatives, please contact the Gyeonggi FTA Center at 1688-4684.
 

This year, in addition to the existing K-Beauty Expo in Taiwan, a new K-Beauty Expo will be held in Vietnam, a country where recognition and demand for K-beauty products is high.

Recruitment targets cosmetics SMEs that have at least one of their headquarters, production facilities or research centers situated in Gyeonggi Province. The province will support those participating in the Expo with discounts on event participation fees, transportation costs, and interpretation fees.

In order to provide more value to participating companies, the Expo will feature export consultation sessions with local buyers, as well as a variety of programs and export market development support measures, including support for entering Taiwan’s online retail network and one-stop support from KOTRA’s export support platform.

“At last year’s K-Beauty Expos in Taiwan and Indonesia, 114 cosmetics SMEs participated and secured export contracts valued at KRW 6.67 billion… This year’s K-Beauty Expos in Taiwan and Vietnam will also offer various support programs to help [participating SMEs] achieve good results, and we hope that cosmetics SMEs in the province will be interested in participating,” said Han Tae-sung, Director of the Bio Industry Division of Gyeonggi Province.

K-Beauty Expo Taiwan will run from August 16 to 19 with registration open until May 31 (https://tw.k-beautyexpo.co.kr/fairDash.do). K-Beauty Expo Vietnam will be held from November 7 to 9 with registration open until August 30 (https://saigonbeautyshow.com/fairDash.do).

For more information, please contact the Kintex Global Business Team at 031-995-8845 (Taiwan), 031-995-8847 (Vietnam).

Gyeonggi Province, through the Gyeonggi Research Institute, undertook a three-month study from November last year on the feasibility as well as economic and social effects of attracting the immigration office to Gyeonggi Province and announced the results on March 24.

According to the analysis, the economic impact of hosting the immigration office in Gyeonggi Province would be between KRW 182.1 billion and KRW 515.2 billion in output, KRW 219 billion and KRW 353 billion in value added, and 1,477 to 4,198 people employed, depending on the type of facilities. The greatest impact is anticipated if the center is established as a control tower that encompasses all migration-related functions.

The report also determined that Gyeonggi Province has several advantages over other regions in attracting the immigration office.

Gyeonggi Province is home to the nation’s largest foreign-born population, about 660,000 as of December 2023, making it a natural test bed for various immigration policies, the report said.

In addition, the provincial government said that Gyeonggi is a strong candidate for hosting the immigration office due to several factors: its transportation infrastructure, including Incheon International Airport, Incheon Port, and Gimpo International Airport; high work efficiency due to its proximity to the Ministry of Justice, other ministries, and the presidential office; the presence of the largest number of immigration and foreigner-related organizations among local governments; and high policy acceptance among local residents due to its ongoing multicultural city policies.

A total of six cities in Gyeonggi Province have announced their intention to vie for the immigration office: Ansan City, Gimpo City, Goyang City, Hwaseong City, Gwangmyeong City, and Dongducheon City. According to the characteristics of each city and county, various attraction activities are being pursued, such as forming special organizations, holding discussions, and submitting proposals to the Ministry of Justice.

To attract the immigration office, each region is promoting its unique characteristics and growth potential: Ansan City has designated a special zone for multicultural villages and established a support center for foreign residents; Gimpo City has the potential to develop into an international city and offers amenities and housing; Goyang City has an extensive transportation network and urban infrastructure; Hwaseong City has the potential to grow as a location for large and high-tech companies; Gwangmyeong City has access to transportation such as the KTX and is located at the center of a dense foreign population; and Dongducheon City has a multicultural environment as an area with unreturned U.S. military facilities.

“Gyeonggi Province has a high concentration of permanent foreign residents as well as short-term rotational foreign workers and seasonal workers, so it can serve as a testing ground for various immigration policies through the establishment of an immigration office… We will actively promote the establishment of an immigration office in Gyeonggi Province by holding discussions to build consensus among Gyeonggi residents and making recommendations to the central government,” said Kum Chul-wan, Director General of the Labor Bureau of Gyeonggi Province.

Meanwhile, on March 7, the Mayors Association of Gyeonggi Province submitted a “Joint Request for the Establishment of an Immigration and Naturalization Service Agency in Gyeonggi Province” to the Office of the President, the Office of the Speaker of the National Assembly and the Ministry of Justice.

These interpretation and translation services are available not only to parents and children of multicultural families, but also to educational organizations in the province that require translations of correspondence for distribution.

The interpretation and translation services are provided in seven languages – Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Mongolian, Russian, and English – in cooperation with family centers and multicultural family support centers in 30 cities and counties of Gyeonggi Province (excluding Gwacheon City).

Services can be requested at any time throughout the year by calling or emailing one’s local family center or multicultural family support center.

Among Korean local autonomies, Gyeonggi Province is home to the largest number of multicultural students (6-17 years old), so the services are expected to see more use this year after handling 5,383 requests last year.

“We recommend that educational institutions such as schools, kindergartens, and day care centers use the services in the new semester when there are many notifications… I hope there will be smooth communication between children from multicultural families, parents and educational institutions,” said Kim Mi-seong, Director General of the Women and Family Bureau of Gyeonggi Province.

On March 11, Governor Kim met with Secretary General Gino Van Begin at the Gyeonggi Provincial Government Complex and said, “It is very unfortunate that the Korean government has been regressive rather than proactive in responding to the climate crisis, but Gyeonggi Province is taking a bold and active role in addressing climate change… It is very encouraging to have you here. I hope we can engage in more activities together as a result of this visit.”

Governor Kim also announced that Gyeonggi Province will join the 100% Renewables Cities and Regions global RE100 campaign and encourage its 31 cities and counties to join. This campaign was launched by ICLEI to encourage local governments around the world to transition to 100% renewable energy at the city/region level. Governor Kim also requested ICLEI’s cooperation in inviting global climate technology companies to the Climate Technology Industry Exhibition that Gyeonggi Province will host later this year.

“Gyeonggi Province’s ambitious response to climate change, the Gyeonggi RE100 vision, is setting an example not only in Korea but also internationally,” said Secretary General Gino Van Begin. “We are honored to have Governor Kim as a member of the ICLEI World Executive Board representing East Asia. I hope he will join us at the World Congress in Brazil this June to share his commitment and achievements with the international community.”

ICLEI is an international organization that was officially launched in 1990 at the World Conference of Local Governments at the United Nations Headquarters. Its official name is the International Council of Local Governments for Sustainability.

It works with more than 2,500 local governments in 125 countries around the world to strengthen the capacity of local governments to implement sustainable development policies and to promote international exchange. The organization is headquartered in Germany and has offices in 13 countries, including Korea. In Korea, 57 local governments, including Gyeonggi Province, Suwon City and Gwangmyeong City, are members of the organization.

Governor Kim is the Executive Chairman of ICLEI Korea and the representative of the East Asia region on the World Executive Council. Gyeonggi Province hosted the ICLEI Korea office at KINTEX in Goyang City in April 2023, and is actively engaging with local governments around the world to share strategies for addressing issues in various fields such as sustainable development, carbon neutrality, and biodiversity.