By Seo Dong-shin
Staff Reporter

The nation’s current three-tier administrative system will likely change before the 2010 local elections, as part of plans to break up provinces into smaller administrative districts, officials said Thursday.

Government officials and chief policymakers of the ruling Uri Party and the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) Thursday agreed to introduce a more compact administrative district system to apply it from the 2010 elections for mayors and governors.

The current administrative system is broken down by city or province, then grouped into smaller districts or counties, gu and gun, and then by smaller zones, dong or myon.

The agreement came in a policy coordination meeting between the government and the ruling and main opposition parties.

Among those present at the meeting were Oh Young-kyo, minister of government administration and home affairs, and Yoon Sung-sig, chairman of the presidential committee on government innovation and decentralization.

``We have agreed that the current system has many problems that inconvenience residents and go against their welfare,’’ Rep. Sim Jae-duck of the ruling party said in a media briefing at the National Assembly after the meeting. ``So we plan to simplify the three-tier system.’’

The parties, however, have yet to agree on the details.

The ruling party seeks to abolish the provinces and instead introduce one special city and around 60 broad units of municipal bodies, each with a population of up to 1 million.

The GNP agrees on scrapping the provinces but wants to introduce the two-tier system in which smaller district offices come under a special city or broader units of municipal bodies.

``We will not hurriedly push for introducing the new system, as it is a matter of reshuffling a system to last well into 100 years,’’ Sim said.

Rep. Huh Tae-yeol, a GNP lawmaker, also said that it would be best to introduce the system from the 2010 local elections. He said it is impossible to apply the new system to the local elections slated for next year as it will cause unnecessary debates and misunderstanding according to each party’s interests.

The ruling and opposition parties plan to have a monthly discussion session with government officials regarding the plan, Huh said.

The GNP will hold a public forum on the issue Monday with the attendance of Park Geun-hye, the party’s chairwoman, at the National Assembly Library, party officials said.

saltwall@koreatimes.co.kr