Mayor outlines 2030 vision for Hanam at 100-day briefing
Targets per-capita GRDP of 50 million won with at least 10 trillion won in investment
"There are two structural challenges Hanam must resolve."
That was the opening salvo from Hanam Mayor Lee Hyun-jae at a press briefing Tuesday marking his first 100 days in office under the ninth round of local elections.
Lee identified overcoming a weak fiscal base as the first challenge. New towns — Misa, Wirye, Gamil and Gyosan — have driven a sharp surge in demand for transportation, education, welfare and social overhead capital infrastructure across the city. Yet the city's projected own-source revenue for 2027 is expected to remain flat or rise only marginally from the previous year. Gyeonggi Province's declaration of a fiscal emergency, which will reduce provincial transfers to Hanam, is expected to worsen the city's finances further, making fiscal reform the most pressing issue on the agenda.
Lee set strengthening the city's weak economic base as the second challenge.
Hanam's per-capita gross regional domestic product last year stood at 28.04 million won ($20,600), ranking 24th among Gyeonggi Province's 31 cities and counties — below the provincial average of 43 million won — and just one-sixth the level of Seoul's Gangnam-gu.
The city's corporate local income tax revenue also lagged sharply: Hanam collected 33 billion won in 2025, roughly one-ninth the 303.1 billion won posted by Icheon.
Lee vowed to break through these fiscal and economic constraints by attracting at least 10 trillion won ($7.36 billion) in investment by 2030 under the ninth term of local governance.
To that end, he outlined four initiatives: developing a 3 trillion won AI innovation cluster on the self-sufficient Zone 5 site of Gyosan new town as a core high-tech industrial hub — with Postech, Carnegie Mellon University, the National University of Singapore and KT Corp's cloud unit among the planned participants; redeveloping Camp Colburn into a new economic hub combining shopping, cultural and office functions, with completion targeted for 2032; simultaneously building a K-culture complex and a national garden as twin growth engines for the culture and tourism industries; and establishing a stay-based tourism economic belt linking a five-star hotel in Misa new town with a water-screen and musical fountain at Misa Lake Park.
Momentum behind the culture and tourism plans received a boost in February, when Eric Trump, executive vice president of the Trump Organization and second son of US President Donald Trump, visited both the Misa Island site and the Wirye Seongnam golf course site in person to assess their development potential.
The 10 trillion won investment target for the ninth term is separate from the roughly 1 trillion won the city secured from 13 companies — including Sungwon Adpia and Igloo Corporation — during the eighth term, which was projected to create a foundation for 2,500 jobs.
Taken together, Lee's economic vision for Hanam by 2030 comes down to a single benchmark.
"Per-capita GRDP of 50 million won — we need to reach at least one-third the level of Seoul's Gangnam-gu."
pjh@heraldcorp.com
