The Incheon Metropolitan City, South Korea’s powerhouse business center, has reappointed Albay Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda as its Advisor for International Affairs.
The lawmaker has held the post since 2009 when he was still Albay governor. Its reconfirmation was signed by Incheon Mayor Park Nam-choon last week and will be valid until November 27, 2023.
The 2009 appointment of Salceda, under an Albay-Incheon sisterhood pact forged at the Incheon Sister Cities Conference that year, had firmed up Albay’s economic partnership with the Incheon Metropolitan City.
The pact was intended to cement trade and investment cooperation between Incheon and Albay, which was preceded by a bilateral tie-up that goes back to 2007.
Salceda, who currently chairs the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, thanked Incheon Mayor Park Nam-choon and the Incheon Metropolitan Authority for the continued trust given him in the past eleven years.
He also expressed optimism the existing sisterhood pact between the two local governments will continue to flourish as business and trade normalize after the pandemic, assuring that his second congressional district office in Legazpi City, Albay’s business hub and the Bicol regional center, can help facilitate fresh trade relations with Incheon.
Salceda had started to develop links with Incheon in South Korea, since December of 2007, before his appointment as International Economic Advisor of Incheon Metropolitan Authority, following the establishment of close relations among top officials of the two central business hubs.
His reappointment as advisor, he said, is actually an honor bestowed on the people of Albay which he has represented for years until the present and which won recognitions in various spheres.
Albay was adjudged Best Province for local governance by the Department of Interior and Local Government in 2013; Best in education program with its Albay Higher Education Contribution Scheme — Education Quality for Albayanos, free tuition in all community colleges and Bicol University satellite campuses, Brilliant Young Teachers, Bakas Parangal ng Kabayanihan, National Achievement Test after rising from 177th to 19th spot, Provincial Education Department (the only LGU with this regular office), Graduate Studies Subsidy Program, Bicol University modernization and Technical Educational and Skills Development Authority mass trainings.