Hwaseong Special City to Focus on Three Key Areas: AI, Livelihood Economy, and Integrated Care

[Suwon Ilbo=Park Chan-hyuk Reporter] Hwaseong Special City announced on the 20th that it will proactively respond to the new government's national policy tasks by establishing artificial intelligence (AI), livelihood economy, and integrated care as three key areas and actively implementing linked projects.

Since August, the city has operated a task force responding to national policy tasks, discovering a total of 83 linked projects centered on areas related to Hwaseong City among the government's 123 major national policy tasks. These will be reflected and implemented in the 2026 general budget and supplementary budget.

Of the 83 projects, the city has reflected 60 projects in the 2026 general budget at a scale of 208.8 billion won and will implement them along with 12 non-budgeted projects. Seven projects are scheduled to be reflected in next year's supplementary budget, while the remaining four cases will be pursued through government recommendations.

For key AI sector projects, the city will lead the realization of "K-AI City" by implementing the "AI-based Future Mobility City Construction Project" and the "AI Innovation School Project."

Using the Hwaseong Autonomous Driving Living Lab Center as a hub, the city will focus on constructing a demonstration city for implementing future mobility technologies such as autonomous driving, while nurturing AI future talent through customized AI literacy education for civil servants and citizens.

In the livelihood economy sector, the city will expand issuance of regional currency "Hope Hwaseong" with a goal of 1 trillion won in circulation, breathing vitality into alleyway commercial areas, and secure export competitiveness for local small and medium-sized businesses by expanding logistics support for export SMEs, laying a solid economic foundation.

In the integrated care sector, the city will implement "Hwaseong Right Neighbor Integrated Care," which provides customized integrated care by life cycle for people experiencing difficulties in maintaining daily life, transcending the existing care system focused on the elderly and people with disabilities.

Additionally, the city will operate suicide prevention centers tailored to its characteristics with two centers—urban and rural—in each area, providing customized suicide prevention and mental health services by region, accelerating the leap toward a "national model" suicide prevention center.

Based on the discovered national policy task-linked projects, the city plans to strategically respond by proposing projects aligned with the new government's national policy philosophy, thereby responding strategically to project competitions from central ministries and securing national treasury funds.

Mayor Chung Myung-geun said, "We will go beyond discovering national policy task-linked projects centered on AI, livelihood economy, and integrated care and complete them through active implementation into policies that citizens can feel," and added, "We will make Hwaseong better through policies that bring tangible change to citizens' lives."