Korea needs to boost productivity in regions outside the capital area and make them more attractive places to live as it seeks to sustain economic growth and address demographic challenges, officials at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said Wednesday. Lamia Kamal-Chaoui, director of the Center for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities at the Paris-based institution, said in an interview with Yonhap News Agency that the OECD has seen "something very interesting" in Korea. Despite the concentration of people and economic activity in the capital region, the country's regional gaps in GDP per capita are among the smallest in the OECD, she said. "Indeed, you have the largest concentration of the capital region across the OECD," Kamal-Chaoui said. "(But the economic growth of Korea came with) a level of regional disparities in terms of GDP per capita that is the lowest among the lowest in the OECD." Kamal-Chaoui said the debate over regional disparities goes beyond economic growth to the question of whether such concentration in the capital region is "susta