Session 5. Sustainable Balanced Development and Social Integration
Keynote Presentation. Social Integration and Balanced National Development
SONG Jae-ho　 Chairman of the Presidential Committee for Balanced National Development

□ Korea has faced diverse social conflicts in the process of achieving industrialization in a relatively short period of time.
 
○ Various levels of conflicts have lasted over the past decades, including conflicts between liberalism and conservatism, east and west region, and North and South Korea.
 
○ Recently, new conflicts have cropped up in the areas of generations, economic classes, genders, etc.
 
□ In general, social conflicts are caused by competitions for scarce resources such as power, wealth, and honor, as well as differences in values and beliefs.
 
○ Equity and balance should be recognized as important social values to embrace the socially weak and the stragglers.
 
○ Communication is an important tool to recognize and consider others who has different ideas and values.
 
○ According to the German Constitution, rich regions should help poor regions. And France specifies solidarity and partnership in the Constitution.
 
□ The Balanced Development Policy, the policy of caring and nurturing people, is crucial for social integration.
 
○ The balanced development plays a vital role in resolving various and complicated social conflicts between the Seoul metropolitan area and the other regions, and between the cities and the rural.
 
○ Furthermore the balanced development should extend its spatial reach to the Korean Peninsula and we should overcome the conflicts in our society resulting from reunification in the future.