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Let us help the new address system take root

Posted December. 27, 2013 04:23,   

한국어

The address of the Dong-A Ilbo and Channel A is 139 Sejong-ro, Jongno district, Seoul. But it changes to 1 Cheonggyecheon-ro, Jongno district, Seoul, effective on the first day of next year. All addresses in Korea will change from a system based on lot numbers to a system based on road names.

The lot-number based system caused many inconveniences as one lot number had multiple buildings and one building had multiple lot numbers. The new road-name based scheme specifies different categories of roads such as daero (main road), ro (road), and gil (way). For example, buildings on the left side of Cheonggyecheon-ro have odd numbers and those on the right side have even numbers. This makes people find an address much easier.

Mails and parcels will be delivered with old addresses for the time being. To make goods through customs and get paid for export sales, however, addresses must be changed in legal documents related to corporate activities such as business registration certificates. Companies need to send their global buyers a document proving that their old and new address is the same. The addresses of patent and trademark holders need to be changed for the protection of the holders.

Since the government’s announcement of a new address system in July 2011, both old and new addresses have been used in parallel. The government tried to use new addresses from 2012, but postponed the enforcement for two years. From 2014, only new addresses will be legally valid. Eighty percent of government-related institutions have used new addresses, while the private sector is lagging slightly behind. It is not easy to change the 100-year-old address system all at once. A little bit of public support to the new rule, however, would make our society more convenient.