Busan's Ambitious Leap Forward: New City Brand and Vision for the Future

Busan Mayor Park Heong-joon has declared 2023 as the "Year of Busan's Great Leap Forward" and unveiled a new city brand and vision for the future. The city aims to build a pan-citizen consensus on transforming Busan into a global hub city, fostering expectations and pride in the city's future.

A proclamation ceremony for 'Big Dream, the Future of Busan' was held at the BEXCO Convention Center, showcasing the city brand creation process and celebrating citizen contributions. The event featured a city image (CI) video expressing three-dimensional (3D) stereoscopy through colors and angles, as well as the unveiling of a sculpture depicting the brand slogan (BI) 'Busan is good'.

Mayor Park outlined five core strategies for Busan's future, which include becoming a logistics hub city, a financial innovation city, a digital new industry city, a cultural attraction city, and a global tourism city.

The logistics hub city strategy entails constructing Gadeokdo New Airport before the 2030 World Expo and establishing a tri-port logistics hub and maritime platform city, aiming to become a global logistics hub comparable to Singapore and Hong Kong.

Busan's Financial Innovation City strategy involves integrating financial institutions, developing the Busan International Financial Center (BIFC), and fostering digital finance through a digital valley with blockchain-specific clusters and fintech companies. The city also plans to create a geoscience-centered startup city and an Asian startup hub.

As a Digital New Industry City, Busan plans to foster digital industries converging information and communication technology (ICT) such as quantum technology and artificial intelligence (AI), develop the aircraft maintenance industry (MRO) and urban air traffic (UAM) industry, and secure future growth engines like power semiconductor value chains and climate technology industries.

The cultural attraction city strategy envisions building top cultural and artistic infrastructures such as opera houses and world-class art museums, creating film, video, and game innovation clusters, fostering digital content, and promoting living culture and local arts.

Lastly, Busan's global tourism city strategy involves developing global tourism content linked to local historical and cultural resources, introducing new maritime tourism transportation, creating a marine leisure hub city, establishing a southern coastal tourism belt, and building regional specialized tourism belts by fostering medical, wellness, and vacation tourism.