Gyeonggi Province Seeks More Citizens' Voices in Budget Planning

Gyeonggi Province is conducting a preference survey on investment projects for the 2013 budget compilation and soliciting proposals from residents.

According to the province on the 11th, any resident can propose projects that they hope the province will pursue next year through various methods including the province's homepage, SNS (Facebook, Twitter), email, fax, and mail.

The province also accepts proposals at civil complaint departments in cities and counties, as well as at the Visiting Citizens' Room, Mobile Civil Service 365, and the Always Available Complaint Office that the province operates.

Residents whose outstanding proposals are adopted will be given opportunities including commendation from the provincial governor, having the proposer's name displayed in the project name, industrial inspection trips, and appointment as members of the Participatory Budget Committee.

In 2011, 46 projects were proposed, of which 23 projects totaling 13.6 billion won were reflected in this year's budget.

Additionally, residents can directly participate in participatory budget workshops and regional and sector-specific discussion forums to submit their opinions.

First, residents can attend a participatory budget workshop to be held on June 21 at the Agricultural and Fisheries Products Training Institute in Seodun-dong, Suwon City, and present their views.

Regional and sector-specific discussion forums are also scheduled to be held in August. In particular, regional discussion forums will be held separately in the southern and northern areas to intensively discuss pending issues.

Additionally, a preference survey on investment projects for the 2013 budget compilation will be conducted through the province's homepage, SNS (Facebook, Twitter), and written methods until August 31.

An Gyeong-yeop, the province's budget official, said, "This year, we will operate a new project development season system to actively develop new projects and projects requiring improvement, while also gathering residents' opinions from the stage of planning next year's policies to prevent unnecessary budget waste."