The Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of National Defense, along with other core government ministries that have remained in the greater Seoul area, will all relocate to Sejong between next year and 2031. With diplomacy, security and justice functions now included, most central government ministries will be concentrated in Sejong, apart from a handful of agencies tied to the presidential office. Once the move is complete, the relocation of government ministries to Sejong will effectively be finished, more than 20 years after the 2005 special act that paved the way for building the administrative capital.
The Ministry of the Interior and Safety announced the second phase relocation plan for central government agencies on the 13th. Of the 142 administrative agencies based in the greater Seoul area, 44 agencies and 9,929 civil servants are subject to the move. Combined with the 43 agencies and 14,731 officials that have already relocated, the total comes to 87 agencies and 24,660 people. This round includes five ministries previously excluded from the Sejong relocation: the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of National Defense, the Ministry of Unification and the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family.
Next year, 27 agencies and 2,995 officials will move into privately leased office buildings in Sejong. Six agencies, including the Korea Media and Communications Commission and the Personal Information Protection Commission, will move in the first half of the year, followed by 19 agencies, including the Financial Services Commission, in the second half. The Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family will finalize their timelines in line with a revision to the law governing the administrative capital.
The foreign, defense and unification ministries will relocate after new offices are built, together with the Korean National Police Agency, the Public Prosecution Office, the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency, the Board of Audit and Inspection and the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials. A total of 17 agencies and 6,934 officials fall into this category. The government plans to build separate facilities that reflect the nature of investigative, security and control room work, and to complete the move by 2031. As a result, major functions of the central government, from foreign and security policy to investigation and policing, will be concentrated in Sejong.
The relocation of presidential bodies, including the Presidential Secretariat, the Office of National Security and the National Intelligence Service, will be reviewed later. Constitutional bodies such as the Supreme Court, the Constitutional Court and the National Election Commission were also left out of this round. A presidential office in Sejong is targeted for completion in 2029, and a National Assembly complex in Sejong in 2033.
The government will push for a revision to the administrative capital law to enable the relocation of the five ministries. "This is a core national strategy to overcome the concentration of power in the capital region," Interior Minister Yoon Ho-jung said. "We will carry out the relocation while minimizing inconvenience to the public."