Busan is good

Mayor Park Heong-jun Makes Emergency Visit to National Assembly Political Affairs Committee Chair, Urging Immediate Halt to the Lee Jae Myung Administration’s Attempt to Undermine Busan’s Status as a Financial Hub

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Mayor Park Heong-joon announced that he visited the National Assembly this afternoon (23rd) to deliver an official proposal to Yoon Han-hong, Chair of the Political Affairs Committee, on major pending issues that could undermine the status and functions of Busan as a financial hub. Immediately after meeting Chair Yoon, Mayor Park met consecutively with People Power Party lawmakers on the Political Affairs Committee, conveyed concerns that Busan’s competitiveness as a financial hub could weaken, and requested active legislative support and policy cooperation from the opposition.

This National Assembly visit was made in response to ongoing discussions on the designation of a third financial hub and the transition of the Korea Exchange into a holding company structure, with the aim of correcting the direction of national financial policy and safeguarding Busan’s right to survival as a financial hub.

During the visit, Mayor Park characterized the plan to designate an additional third financial hub as a “regressive policy that erodes national financial competitiveness,” and strongly urged the firm establishment of the principle of “selection and concentration” in financial policy.

With regard to the government’s plan to designate a third financial hub, Busan Metropolitan City expressed strong concern. Since its designation in 2009, Busan has built a specialized foundation centered on maritime finance and digital finance. However, with momentum weakened due to delays in the relocation of the Korea Development Bank, an additional designation would only disperse the competitiveness of existing hubs.

In particular, the City emphasized that a “share-and-divide” approach would undermine the nation’s overall financial competitiveness and that, as shown by global cases such as Japan and the United Kingdom, financial hubs should be strategically fostered through concentrated investment in a limited number of bases.

The City also pointed to the issue of functional overlap among financial hubs. As Busan is pursuing a specialization strategy centered on maritime finance, digital finance, and asset management, if a new financial hub were to pursue similar sectors such as fintech and asset management, policy efficiency would decline and confusion could arise in the national strategy for developing the financial industry.

Mayor Park also noted that efforts to transition the Korea Exchange to a holding company structure could leave only the shell of Busan’s core financial hub functions, and strongly called for explicit legal codification to ensure the Exchange headquarters remains in Busan.

He assessed that the current holding company transition proposal lacks clear legal provisions on the headquarters location, making it highly likely that key subsidiaries such as KOSPI and KOSDAQ could later return to Seoul through amendments to the articles of incorporation. He warned that, in such a scenario, the central management function of the Busan headquarters would effectively disappear, and Busan’s standing as a financial hub would inevitably fall sharply.

Accordingly, Busan Metropolitan City strongly requested that, when transitioning to a holding company system, supplementary provisions of the relevant law explicitly stipulate that the holding company and its major subsidiaries locate their headquarters in Busan. The City emphasized that this would carry forward the legislative intent of the 2013 amendment to the Capital Markets Act, which stipulated that the Exchange headquarters be located in Busan. It further stressed that this is an essential measure for balanced national development, a minimum legal safeguard to maintain the two main pillars of Korea’s financial industry, and a necessary step to secure the sustainability of Busan as a financial hub.

In his meeting with opposition lawmakers on the Political Affairs Committee following his meeting with Chair Yoon, Mayor Park underscored that “Busan as a financial hub is the last bastion of balanced national development,” and asked the Committee to lend its support to preventing the dispersal of financial bases and to legally codifying the continued location of the Exchange headquarters in Busan.

Mayor Park stated, “Financial hub policy must be pursued from the perspective of a mid- to long-term national strategy, not short-term policy judgment,” adding, “We will respond by mobilizing all administrative capacities in close cooperation with the National Assembly so that the functions and standing of Busan as a financial hub are not undermined.”