KOREAN NET

The Seoul Metropolitan Government on May 20 released a master plan for attracting foreign talent and companies and help them adapt to life in the capital. Shown are Hanbok-wearing international tourists on May 1 posing for a group photo at Gyeongbokgung Palace in Seoul's Jongno-gu District. (Yonhap News)

By Xu Aiying

The Seoul Metropolitan Government has released a blueprint for securing the city's sustainable urban competitiveness to create a "future Seoul that attracts talented global personnel and grows with foreign residents."

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon on May 20 announced funding of KRW 250.6 billion to woo talented labor and companies and help them stably settle in the city. The plan's two core parts are attracting excellent workers and creating an inclusive multicultural society.

To make Seoul a place where top global talent wishes to work, the city pledged all-out efforts ranging from support to attract international companies to education and support for finding jobs and launching startups.

In cooperation with major domestic universities, a recruitment project will target 1,000 workers from abroad possessing a master's or Ph.D. in natural sciences and engineering. The setup of a "unicorn startup hub," an international support facility for such businesses in which English is the language used, is also expected to attract promising startups from overseas.

The hiring of foreign workers will also eye sectors suffering from lack of staff such as care, restaurants and hotels and fields in which the city is strong like fashion to revitalize the municipal economy. The introduction of such staff to sectors with severe labor shortages such as nursing and child care will be carefully conducted to prevent infringement on the jobs of nationals.

To create an inclusive multicultural society that embraces expats as fellow citizens, the second Seoul Foreign Resident Center will be opened in May next year in the city's northeast side. The first is located in the southwestern part.

Family centers in 25 autonomous districts will run a real-time multilingual interpretation service based on artificial intelligence. A support service for expats will also help them safely find housing under the wolse (monthly rent) or jeonse (lump-sum deposit as rent) system.

The ceiling for eligibility to receive pregnancy, childbirth and care services will be lowered so that nationals and expats can equally receive benefits. From this month, a new monthly subsidy for educational activity of KRW 400,000-KRW 600,000 for multicultural children in elementary, middle and high school will seek to ease the difficulty of childrearing.

"A city's competitiveness stems from dynamism, which comes from creative talent originating from diverse cultural backgrounds," Mayor Oh said. "To make Seoul one of the world's top five cities, we must attract foreign talent and companies more aggressively and get along with them to maximize their ideas, capital and human capacity to advance as an inclusive city."

xuaiy@korea.kr