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Incheon Mayor Park Nam-chun (center) with GM Korea President poses for a commemorative photograph Kaher Kazem (second from right) after agreeing to cooperate on increasing Chevrolet sales on Sept. 7. (provided by the City of Incheon)
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City provided land in free 30-year lease in hopes of attracting foreign investment
In reaction to GM Korea’s plan to split off its R&D operations into a separate company, the city of Incheon has decided to consider a plan to reclaim the land used for the Cheongna test driving site. “The city of Incheon provided the land to GM Korea out of the expectation that the company would dedicate itself to developing Incheon’s automobile industry, creating jobs and stabilizing employment, but many people are worried about its current creation of a separate company. I have instructed the relevant department to carry out a legal review of reclaiming the test driving site that we provided to GM Korea,” Incheon mayor Park Nam-chun wrote in a Facebook post on Oct. 21. GM Korea’s test driving site covers 410,000m2 in the Cheongna neighborhood of Incheon’s Seo District on land that the city lent to GM Daewoo in 2004 on a free 30-year lease with the possibility of a 20-year extension. There was some controversy about favoritism at the time of the lease, but Incheon explained that it was providing GM these shocking incentives with the hope that the test driving site would help attract foreign investors to Cheongna International City.
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GM Korea’s test driving site
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Members of the GM Korea labor union enter the company’s headquarter building in Bupyeong, Incheon, after hearing of a general shareholders’ meeting to pass a motion to establish a separate R&D corporation on Oct. 19. (Yonhap News)
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