▲ President Lee Jae Myung speaks during a town hall meeting in Ulsan, about 400 kilometers southeast of Seoul, on Jan. 23, 2026. (Yonhap)

Lee-balanced development

Lee calls for public support for balanced regional growth

By Kim Eun-jung

SEOUL, Jan. 23 (Yonhap) -- President Lee Jae Myung said Friday that public support is crucial for the government's push for balanced regional growth, as it seeks to ease excessive concentration in the Seoul metropolitan area and foster new growth engines nationwide.

Lee made the remarks as his administration is striving to develop five major regional hubs -- the Seoul metropolitan area, the southeast, northeast, central and western regions -- along with three special self-governing provinces: Jeju, Gangwon and North Jeolla.

"There is strong resistance due to entrenched inertia and vested interests," Lee said during a town hall meeting in the southeastern city of Ulsan. "At times like this, public understanding and support are very important."

Lee said decades of concentration of resources in the Seoul metropolitan area has reached its limits, citing soaring housing prices and constraints on electricity and water supplies needed for new semiconductor plants.

"Decentralization and balanced growth is not a matter of concession but a national survival strategy," he said.

Lee also stressed the need to foster advanced industries, such as artificial intelligence (AI), saying Ulsan should position itself at the forefront of the AI transformation by leveraging its strong manufacturing base.

The city is a major industrial hub, home to large automotive, shipbuilding and petrochemical complexes. Last year, SK Group announced plans to build the nation's largest AI data center in the city in partnership with Amazon Web Services.

"Ulsan is a manufacturing powerhouse with key assets for future industries," he said. "AI transformation is an unavoidable trend. If it cannot be avoided, we should adapt to it swiftly and take the lead."

Stressing the need for an AI-driven industrial shift, Lee said South Korea must move quickly toward AI-centered manufacturing by building on its existing competitive edge, pledging efforts to foster Ulsan as a major hub.

"As Ulsan already has strong fundamentals, we need to make intensive investments here," he added.

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