Busan is good

Mayor Park Heong-joon Meets with Deputy Prime Minister for Economy and Finance to Request National Funding for 2026

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Busan Metropolitan City has launched a full-scale effort to secure national funding for 2026. The city announced that on the afternoon of the 14th, Mayor Park Heong-joon met with Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance Koo Yun-cheol at the Government Complex Seoul to request national funding support for major pending projects.

With a strong determination to secure new growth engines as a hub of innovation in the southern region and to maximize the inclusion of key projects—critical to shaping future competitiveness—into the 2026 national budget, the city has taken proactive measures.

At the meeting, Mayor Park emphasized that Busan is a central city for balanced national development, equipped with the innovation capabilities of regional industries, and called for active government cooperation. In particular, the proposals focused on core projects that must be included in next year’s budget for the region’s sustainable development.

The major projects proposed by the city included:

• ●Construction of the Gadeokdo New Airport (total project cost: KRW 15.658 trillion) to expedite completion and ensure timely opening as the southern region’s global hub airport,

• ●Establishment of the Busan seawater desalination demonstration facility (total project cost: KRW 38.5 billion) to create a region-specialized water technology innovation ecosystem, and

• ●Creation of an AX-based AgeTech demonstration hub (total project cost: KRW 30 billion) to address the challenges of a super-aged society.

In addition:

• ●Construction of the Jangnak Bridge (total project cost: KRW 175 billion), a key project to expand the southern region’s wide-area transportation network and improve accessibility,

• ●Construction of the Busan Metropolitan Express Railway (BuTX) (total project cost: KRW 4.77 trillion),

• ●Construction of the Urban Railway Junggwan Line (total project cost: KRW 344 billion), for which the city requested national funding support and swift completion of administrative procedures such as preliminary feasibility studies.

Other proposals included:

• ●Development and demonstration of ultra-broadband communication-based unmanned autonomous mobility technology (total project cost: KRW 100 billion) to automate port logistics transport mobility using AI-powered precision autonomous driving technology,

• ●Establishment of a regional innovation base for the aerospace industry (total project cost: KRW 24 billion),

• ●Creation of a clinical demonstration support platform for advanced regenerative medicine (total project cost: KRW 20 billion), and

• ●Creation of an AI-based video generation studio (total project cost: KRW 48 billion).

Mayor Park stated, “These projects are essential foundations for Busan to leap forward as a global hub city and a city where citizens can enjoy a high quality of life. Through smooth securing of national funding and project implementation, Busan will grow into a central hub for balanced national development in the southern region, and furthermore, ensure that the southern region becomes one of the two main growth axes of the Republic of Korea.”