Gwangmyeong in western Gyeonggi Province was little more than a small commuter town before Mayor Yang Ki-dae took office in 2010.

Six years later, Gwangmyeong has grown into a major city with a population of about 350,000.

Now, the mayor aims to turn the city into a global logistics hub. “I am going to walk into an uncharted road to make the dream of a second take-off come true,” Mayor Yang said.

As part of such a project, Gwangmyeong inked an agreement in June with Hunchun City, northeast of China, to promote economic exchanges. 

Before concluding the accord, the city struck a deal in March to increase economic exchanges with another Chinese city, Dandong. It is planning to make the same agreement with Khasan in Russia no later than this year.

These steps are to make the high-speed KTX Gwangmyeong Station a departing point of the Eurasia railroad network. If the ambitious railroad project, which would involve North Korea, China and Russia, is implemented, Gwangmyeong is expected to grow bigger and host international visitors, city officials said.

“Those agreements with the Chinese cities may be small but it is meaningful that we took the first step toward the project realization,” Mayor Yang said.

“We anticipate that the KTX station will be a center point of people exchanges and logistics in Northeast Asia, and even in the unified Korea,” the mayor said.

The mayor is also paying much attention to reviving the city amid the nation’s protracted economic slowdown.

He launched a project in 2011 to transform a dead mine into a cave theme park. The cave became one of the city‘s beloved tourist sites with a gallery, aquarium, botanical garden, and winery all inside, city officials said.

The cave had remained as the biggest metal mine in the metropolitan area until 1972. Various metals, including gold, silver, copper and zinc, were mined from the tunnels that stretch 78km. More recently, the abandoned mine was used to store salted shrimp -- an ingredient used in making kimchi.

In 2011, the city purchased the privately owned cave to turn it into a tourist attraction. After years of restoration and development, the cave was transformed into a theme park. The Gwangmyeong Cave includes an aquarium, a concert hall, a wine cellar and a restaurant.

The cave opened to the public in April last year and has since attracted nearly 1.2 million people, according to the city.

In addition to the cave, the city, under Yang‘s leadership, has successfully hosted several large wholesale market chains including Costco, DIY furniture seller IKEA and a Lotte Outlet shopping mall near the KTX station to bring massive investment and visitors in the city.

Yang also reorganized the local welfare system to benefit more people. He established welfare centers so that any resident can have a legal consultation service for free.

He also announced that Gwangmyeong City is to seek a “cultural democracy” which will allow everyone in the community to bask in cultural activities for free or at a cheaper price.

“Doctors for the silver” is another city policy that sent doctors to local silver centers to provide free health checks and medical advice. Volunteers were also employed to patrol elementary school zones so that the students can come and go to and from school safely.

The city’s growth was made possible thanks to the mayor’s strong leadership, according to city officials.

Yang, 54, is a journalist-turned politician who is known as a leader who doesn’t fear a challenge. “His tenacity and sense of justice paved the way for a successful career as a city mayor,” an official said.

Yang was born to a poor family in Gunsan, North Jeolla Province in 1962. He studied hard so he could enter a prestigious university and become successful.

His tenacity didn’t just end with him attending Korea‘s top university, Seoul National University, it also got him work at one of Korea’s most read newspapers, Dong-A Ilbo. As a politics reporter for 16 years, he dug deep to uncover corruption. His sense of justice brought him the most honorable journalist awards several times in the 1990s for scoops such as the graft scandal of a labor minister and North Korea-engaged political sabotage to beat presidential candidate, Kim Dae-jung who later became president.

His close journalist friend Min Byung-wook depicts Yang as a person who always “stood on the side of the weak.” Watching the most corrupted power field in Korea, Yang noticed loopholes in the social safety net which distressed the most isolated in society. He was elected to city mayor in the 2010 local elections.

What enabled Gwangmyeong to become a young, lively local community is Yang‘s horizontal leadership, city officials said. Yang seeks ideas from every city official regardless of their position. The city officials said whoever wants to make a proposal can “directly deliver opinions to the mayor, instead of waiting for approval from the bosses.” The efficient idea delivering system has enabled Gwangmyeong to go through rapid changes.

In 2014, Yang was re-elected as city mayor. He won 61.6 percent of the local votes, which was the highest supporting rate in all of the Gyeonggi Province cities.

By Park Joung-kyu and Song Ji-won(fob140@heraldcorp.com) (jiwon.song@heraldcorp.com)