Gangnam's economy 22 times larger than Gangbuk: data

Of Seoul’s 25 districts, Gangnam-gu has the largest economy, with its total output being nearly 22 times the size of the smallest, Gangbuk-gu, data showed Thursday.

According to the Seoul metropolitan government, Gangnam-gu’s gross regional domestic product in 2019 stood at 71.85 trillion won ($6 billion), followed by Jung-gu’s 53.8 trillion, Yeongdeungpo-gu’s 36.1 trillion and Seocho-gu’s 35.6 trillion won. The smallest economy in terms of GRDP was Gangbuk-gu at 3.3 trillion won.

GRDP is a monetary measure of the total gross value of the goods and services produced in a specific region. 

The region that showed the highest rate of growth was Jongno-gu at 6.6 percent, followed by Yeongdeungpo-gu, which grew 5.6 percent to take the third place from Seocho-gu.

Seoul’s GRDP for 2019 was 435.9 trillion won, which the officials said accounted for 22.6 percent of the whole country figure.

GRDP per capita in Seoul was 45.1 million won, which marked a 1.45-million-won increase from the year before while being was substantially higher than the national average of 37.2 million won.

Jung-gu led all regions in the category with 417.5 million won, followed by Jongno-gu’s 218.7 million and Gangnam-gu’s 141.4 million. The last place with 14 million won was Dobong-gu, which was also the second to last in terms of total GRDP with 3.4 trillion.

The service industry by far accounted for most production within the city, accounting for 92 percent of the city’s total GRDP. The smallest sector was manufacturing, at 4.1 percent.

By Yoon Min-sik (minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)