This study has two main purposes. Firstly, it aims to discover main cooperative local initiatives which not only meet the government policy but also will promote symbiotic progress among Muju-gun, Gimchun-si and Youngdong-gun, so-called Samdobong region. The second one is to suggest regional development strategies for carrying effectively forward the initiatives.
For these purposes, we reviewed the current condition and regional properties. We also analyzed related policies and internal and external cases with similarities. After that, we classified the main sectors necessary for cooperation among the local areas of Samdobong region into agri-business, cultural tourism and ecological environment. Strategic cooperative initiatives have been drawn from a survey targeting some residents and public officials of the region, and a few specialists in regional development.
Samdobong region means "the primary human settlement units consisting of three local areas aforementioned that share Samdobong(mountaintop)". The local areas have continued collaborations for information exchange, personal exchange, cultural exchange and so on, even though they have been devided into three provinces - Jeonbuk, Gyeongbuk and Chungbuk. Considering strengths and weaknesses of the region, we set up the regional vision as "Creative Region Harmonious with Three Colors of Three Provinces". To make harmonious creative region and bear some fruits from win-win strategy, we designed some cooperative initiatives which had planning period of 5 years or so respectively.
In this study we found 26 initiatives in total from the main sectors mentioned above. Among them, we ultimately selected 6 strategic cooperative initiatives: establishment of a working-level council for promotion of regional cultural tourism; bus and train tour pursuing well-being in Samdobong region; Samdobong eco-trail development; provision of environment-friendly agricultural products for school feeding; agricultural allied brand and agricultural products packaging business based on cooperative and integrated marketing among the areas; establishment of wine industrial cluster in the region.
Fist of all, the selected 6 strategic cooperative initiatives need to be systemized and carried out step-by-step. In the early stage, three local governments of the region should carry forward small scale projects with joint investment in such fields as information sharing, cooperative training, allied brand, joint marketing, etc.


Researchers: Mi-Ryung Song, Jun-Ki Park, Kwang-Sun Kim and Byeong-Seok Yoon
Research Period: 2010.3~2010.10
E-mail Address: mrsong@krei.re.kr