International Activities

Experts in various fields and local civil servants from Korea and Japan gathered in one place in order to recognize the seriousness and seek for the resolutions of overcrowding in the capital area and the regional gap along with the issue of low birth rate and aging.

KRILA (president Yoon Tae-beom) hosted the 10th Korea-Japan bilateral seminar at 2 p.m. on the 26th at the International Conference Room of the Bank Center under the theme of "Regional Vitalization Measures for Population Reduction and Response of Regional Gap" in collaboration with the Council of Local Authorities for International Relations(CLAIR) and the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies(GRIPS).

In particular, both Korea and Japan are experiencing the population decline and regional gap together, and it has become a valuable time for experts from both countries to agonize over and seek for measures to reduce the population and develop the region balanced with the common goal of revitalizing the region.

The opening ceremony began with the opening remarks by Yoon Tae-beom, the president of The Korea Research Institute for Local Administration(KRILA), and was followed by the welcoming speeches by Tamotsu Okamoto, the chairman of Council of Local Authorities for International Relations(CLAIR) and Kiyotaka Yokomichi, the director of National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies(GRIPS), the congratulatory speeches by Lee Jae-kwan, the head of the office of Local Autonomy Decentralization in Ministry of Public Administration and Security and Hirohisa Soma, the minister of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul and lastly, other deputy mayors of local governments representing Korea and Japan delivered keynote speeches. 

First, Japan Hiroshima Deputy Mayor Koike Nobuyuki began his speech under the theme of 'For the Realization of the two million Hiroshima Urban Area Initiative,' followed by Lee Sang-gil, Deputy Mayor of Daegu Metropolitan City, giving a lecture on "The Policy Direction of Daegu City in Response to the era of Population Decline.'

The presentation was given by one expert each from Korea and Japan.

Yamada Gage, a professor at Kyoto Industrial University in Japan, and the former president of the National Governor's Association, presented under the theme of ‘Plans to Revitalize the Region to Cope with the Decline in population and the gap between regions’. Kim Hyun-ho, the head of Regional Inclusive Development Office at the Korea Research Institute for Local Administration(KRILA), presented under the theme of Korea's Response Policies and Tasks to Reduced Population Areas'

Yoon Tae-beom, the president of the Korea Research Institute for Local Administration(KRILA), said, “The decline in population leads to a shortage of labor and consumption, which hinders economic growth and development of the country, and results in a phenomenon that further deepens the regional disparity. In particular, this seminar is where both Korea and Japan are developing and promoting various policies to end the vicious cycle of reduction in population and regional decline not only in the central government, but also in local governments. It will be a place of casual communication by gathering invaluable wisdom to solve the dilemma.”