Gov't pushes up Saemangeum project completion date to 2035 with smaller, public-led plan

The government has moved up the target date for completing Saemangeum, Korea’s multitrillion-won coastal reclamation and development project, by 15 years to 2035, but cut the area to be reclaimed by nearly 30 percent.

Launched in 1991, the project involves building a 33.9-kilometer (21.1-mile) seawall, the world’s longest, and reclaiming tidal flats off the coast of North Jeolla, filling them with sand and soil to create new land that will serve as a hub for advanced industries such as AI, robotics, hydrogen and renewable energy. The project has been estimated to have cost the government about 22.4 trillion won ($16.7 billion) in total, according to the Saemangeum Development and Investment Agency earlier this year. 

“Moving up the target completion date does not just mean changing the numbers on a schedule. It is a promise that the government will step up and move faster,” Prime Minister Han Seong-sook said during a Saemangeum Committee meeting in Gimje, North Jeolla, on Wednesday.

The government reviewed and finalized the revised Saemangeum master plan, the top-level statutory plan for the project’s development, that same day. This marked the first such revision since 2021. 

About 20 government and private committee members — including Kim Hong-kuk, the committee’s private-sector co-chair and CEO of Harim Holdings; Minister of Planning and Budget Park Hong-keun; North Jeolla Gov. Lee Won-taek; and Moon Seong-yo, the commissioner of the Saemangeum Development and Investment Agency — attended the meeting.

Scaling back to speed up

The revision centers on reducing the area to be reclaimed, speeding up the project and strengthening its industrial role.

The area slated for reclamation will shrink 29.5 percent, from 240.5 square kilometers to 169.6 square kilometers (59,428.8 to 41,909.1 acres), with areas with deep water — which will make reclamation costly or limit land use — not to be reclaimed for now. Similarly, the area intended for research will be adjusted from 56 square kilometers to 37.5 square kilometers.

Another 12.2 square kilometers will be set aside as a strategic reserve to meet future demand. When including this reserve, the total planned reclamation area is 181.8 square kilometers.

The existing five zones will also be merged into one.

About 43.3 square kilometers, including part of the land set aside for agriculture and life sciences, will instead be used for renewable energy, and the renewable energy capacity target will rise from 7 gigawatts to 10 gigawatts. The number of industrial hubs will grow to four, covering secondary batteries, robotics and AI; advanced machinery; hydrogen; and RE100-based industries, meaning industries powered entirely by renewable energy.

Development will also shift from private-led to public-led, with the Saemangeum Development Corporation leading the project to bolster its momentum.

These changes reflect Hyundai Motor Group’s 9 trillion won investment, which calls for an AI data center, solar power facilities, a hydrogen production plant and a robot manufacturing plant to build an advanced industry ecosystem.

Additionally, the urban area within Saemangeum will shrink from 29.8 square kilometers to 12.3 square kilometers, and the planned resident population from 269,000 to 228,000. The city will be linked to surrounding cities through a regional railway and a bus rapid transit system.

Funding gaps and local pushback

The plan still faces significant hurdles. The central government cut its share of funding from 70 percent to 50 percent for a project to develop industrial land for lease in Zone 7 of Saemangeum’s first industrial complex, the site of Hyundai’s planned investment. That raised the burden on the North Jeolla provincial government and the Gunsan city government by a combined 7 billion won, from 10.5 billion won to 17.5 billion won. Other challenges include building the power and water supply networks that high-tech companies need and passing related legislation.

Some are also concerned about the reduced scale. Gunsan’s city council last Friday adopted a proposal calling on the government not to shrink Saemangeum’s reclamation area and functions for the sake of early development and instead to complete the original plan in stages.

Two local civic groups, one campaigning to keep seawater flowing through the Saemangeum seawall and another comprising North Jeolla residents, held a press conference in front of the Saemangeum 33 Center in Gimje on Wednesday to urge the committee to reject the revised plan.

“The essence of a project centered on dredging and reclamation has not changed,” the groups said.

Although the reclamation area was cut by 29.5 percent, the dredging volume fell only 12.7 percent, from 710 million cubic meters to 620 million cubic meters (25.1 billion cubic feet to 21.9 billion cubic feet) and about 380 million more cubic meters will still need to be dredged from Saemangeum lake. The groups argue that dredging without water quality measures could worsen water quality.

“The funding and schedule needed to expand the industrial complexes are not specific, and the 10-gigawatt renewable energy target also lacks a plan to build transmission and distribution networks,” the groups said.

Now that the master plan has been finalized, the North Jeolla government and the Saemangeum Development and Investment Agency plan to move quickly on follow-up procedures. The focus is on creating conditions for corporate investment by revising development guidelines and amending regional infrastructure plans for each type of land use.

“Since Saemangeum is a project the state started, the state must now answer with results,” Gov. Lee Won-taek said. “I will fulfill my responsibility to the end so that the changes in Saemangeum lead to corporate investment, local jobs and income for the province’s residents.

BY KIM JUN-HEE [[email protected]]