01 A new initiative for regional development policy announced on Jul. 21, 2008

• To promote a three-tired approach to regional development strategies by dividing the nation into Supra-economic Regions, Economic Regions, and Local Areas

Supra-economic Regions
To enhance national competitiveness based on the four developmental belts, and push ahead with inter-regional cooperation based on the inland developmental belts

Economic Regions
To pursue competitive regions centering around the 5+2 Economic Regions to cope with globalization, instead of inter-regional equilibrium

Local Areas
To promote urban-rural integrated development by linking among 163 cities, counties and towns; small- and medium-sized cities and small capitals; and neighboring rural villages

• To pursue specialized regional development based on new growth engines, expand devolution of administrative and financial authorities to regions, and prepare win-win development strategies for both the Capital and non-Capital regions
• To set forth directions towards developing and complementing existing policies including the Innovation Cities and the Multi-functional Administrative City development

02 Strategies for activating Economic Regions presented on Sep. 10, 2008

• To establish the vision of 5+2 Economic Regions on the basis of economies of scale, inter-regional cooperation, specialized development and regional devolution
• To put forth strategies for providing multi-level support for the nurturing of thirty leading Infrastructure Projects, leading industries, and human resources in the Economic Regions, aiming to accomplish the vision of Economic Regions

Thirty leading projects: to provide a total of 50 trillion won in order to support the construction of area-wide infrastructure facilities to work as a momentum for the development of each Economic Region

Leading industries: to foster one to two industries as a new growth engine for each Economic Region, thereby inducing sustainable growth and job creation

Human resources nurturing: to cultivate globally-competitive human resources by selecting one to two hub universities for each Economic Region in connection with the economic region's leading industries

03 Regional economic policy announced as part of the economic crisis recovery package on Nov. 3, 2008

• To provide regions with a level of 90% of the additional SOC investment, or 4.6 trillion won, pursuant to the revised budget proposal, and expand loans to 440 billion won using the funds for local businesses. Specifically, additional support for the leading projects will be intensively provided to prop up a specialized regional development (a total of 3.6 trillion won in 2009 from 1.5 trillion won in 2008)

04 Regional development policy package put forth on Dec. 15, 2008

• To present measures of reviving regional economies and enhancing the quality of residents' lives, along with the strategies for Local Areas and Supra-economic Regions, reflecting the opinions of the regions