The Seoul Metropolitan Government said Friday it will make its Sunday counseling tour of foreign resident communities a year-round event from this year.

   Since 2009, city officials have visited neighborhoods with high foreigner population every Sunday, except during winters, to offer legal and other counseling services especially to foreign workers, students and marriage immigrants who cannot spare time during weekdays to seek help at city-run administrative centers.

   The range of counseling, currently limited to such subjects as labor affairs, law, mobile phone service and national pension, will also be expanded to include industrial disaster, wage default, immigration and injury, the local government said.

   It is also considering ways to draw participation from Mongolian, Vietnamese and Filipino government offices in charge of social security and labor affairs to better help the foreign residents, officials said.

   The number of foreign residents in South Korea surpassed 1.2 million last year, according to government figures. A majority of them live in Seoul and its adjacent cities.