South Korea is launching a high-speed train service to cut travel times between central Seoul and its outskirts. Officials associated with the project hope that the high-speed train service will encourage young people to settle and have children outside the city.

South Korea is one of the countries with the lowest birth rate in the world. Young people in the country often say they are not interested in getting married and having children, mainly because of long commutes and high housing costs in greater Seoul. It should be noted that almost half of the people live in Greater Seoul.

Seoul's birth rate is lower than the national average. The Korean government has also tried to provide various subsidies to increase the birth rate. Although it did not have much success.

Officials now hope that the Great Train Express (GTX) will connect Seoul to some of the outer areas with six lines. The $99.5 billion underground railway project is scheduled to be completed by 2035.

President Yoon Suk Yeol inaugurated part of the first line on Friday (March 29). The line will reduce the travel distance from the capital Suseo to the satellite city of Dongtan to just 19 minutes. Now it takes 80 minutes to go to this city by bus.

The President expressed the hope that the reduction in travel time would "allow people to spend more time with their families in the mornings and evenings".

When fully operational, GTX will be one of the fastest underground train services in the world. Officials said that the trains of this service will run at a speed of 180 km per hour.

House prices in South Korea are extremely high. Housing is more expensive especially in Seoul.

Land Minister Park Sang-woo told Reuters that young people would be encouraged to take up affordable housing in areas far from the capital as travel times would be greatly reduced thanks to GTX. Besides, they can give the time they save to their families.

The land minister said, 'For example, how can people have time to spend with their children after traveling for two hours? Our aim is to give people extra leisure time after work.'

Some analysts, however, say the GTX upside will further reduce South Korea's shrinking rural population. Because more and more people will migrate to the densely populated capital with good transportation system.

Kyunggi University professor Kim Jin-Yoo said that the most important thing to save regional cities from extinction is to build public infrastructure in those areas as well as the capital.