Media polls show more prefer revised Sejong City plan over original

By Tony Chang
SEOUL, Jan. 13 (Yonhap) -- More South Koreans prefer a revised plan to transform
a new city in the center of the country into a "business and science hub" over
the original plan to relocate a part of the government there, though most
residents in the central region favor the latter, several media polls showed
Wednesday.
The public opinion polls conducted by leading daily newspapers showed over 50
percent of respondents nationwide preferred the government's revision to the
Sejong City plan, first put forward by the former Roh Moo-hyun administration,
while a majority of residents in the region where the city is located preferred
the original.
All of the polls were conducted after the government announced its revisons on
Monday.
Under the proposed revisions, the new city in South Chungcheong Province, some
150 kilometers south of Seoul, would be turned into a business and science center
with several leading South Korean conglomerates already having agreed to set up
operations there. The original plan, which initially had the backing of the
current ruling Grand National Party, called for the relocation of about a dozen
government ministries and agencies in an effort to promote balanced regional
growth.
The government's announcement of its decision to scrap the original plan caused a
political uproar among opposition parties, Chungcheong residents and even some
members of the ruling party.
According to a poll conducted on 1,200 people by the South Korean daily Donga
Ilbo, 54.2 percent of respondents said they preferred the revision while 37.5
percent objected to it.
The Donga Ilbo said opinions were gathered from 700 people living outside the
Chungcheong area and 500 people within the region.
A separate survey conducted by the JoongAng Ilbo, another major daily, showed
that 49.9 percent out of a total 1,012 adult respondents preferred the
government's revision while 40 percent said they object to it.
Similar results were announced by the daily Hankook Ilbo on Tuesday, which said
that in a survey of 700 people nationwide, some 51.3 percent favored the
government's revision while 34 percent were opposed to it.
All of the surveys showed, however, that Chungcheong residents preferred the
original plan .
The Donga Ilbo survey said that 53 percent of residents in the Chungcheong area
favored the original blueprint while 40.7 percent approved the revision.
In the JoongAng Ilbo poll, 54.2 percent of respondents in the Daejeon-Chungcheong
area objected to the new plan as opposed to the 38.6 percent who supported the
revision. The Hankook Ilbo survey also showed that 55.4 percent of respondents in
the Chungcheong region are inclined towards the original plan, while 32.8 percent
support the new blueprint.
odissy@yna.co.kr
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