President Lee Jae Myung on Tuesday ordered officials to accelerate plans to vacate Gwangju Air Base, bringing forward the existing mid-2028 target as much as possible to speed development of a semiconductor cluster.
Lee issued the directive while convening the third public-private review of his administration’s flagship megaprojects, which focus on semiconductors, physical artificial intelligence and AI data centers.
The order followed a Defense Ministry briefing on plans to temporarily relocate military functions from Gwangju Air Base to other military airfields during the monthly review meeting, which Lee has regularly chaired since July.
“President Lee said completing the temporary relocation by mid-2028 would be too late and ordered a review of ways to bring the timetable forward as much as possible,” senior presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung said at a press briefing following the meeting at Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul.
“President Lee stressed that extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures and that, if necessary, consideration should be given to revising laws and regulations or changing rules and guidelines,” Kang added.
Lee first instructed the Defense Ministry to temporarily disperse military functions at Gwangju Air Base to other airfields by mid-2028 at the second megaproject review on Aug. 10.
The military airfield had been selected at the first megaproject review meeting as the site of the Honam semiconductor cluster, envisioned as the country’s second major chip production hub after the semiconductor belt centered on Yongin in Gyeonggi Province.
Tuesday’s order now calls on officials to determine whether even that timetable can be shortened.
Kang said, however, that Lee did not set a new deadline for vacating the base.
“Because relocating Gwangju Air Base would serve as a starting point for several projects and help accelerate their progress, the president called for a review of ways to push the relocation forward as much as possible and for various options to be developed,” Kang said.
“So no specific timetable is being discussed at this point,” she added.
Asked whether the Defense Ministry and other relevant agencies considered a faster relocation feasible, Kang said no specific acceleration plan had been settled.
“The president suggested that ways to speed up the relocation should be reviewed, but it is expected to take some time for specific options to be examined and for the results of that review to be reported,” she said.
Regarding whether consultations with US Forces Korea over the relocation timetable were proceeding smoothly, Kang said the issue was not discussed at Tuesday’s meeting.
Gwangju Air Base is one of five sites designated as collocated operating bases, or COBs, where US Air Force units and aircraft would deploy in the event of a contingency on the Korean Peninsula.
dagyumji@heraldcorp.com