Doubts surround MOMAF regarding made-up maritime agreement

(Second possible title: MOMAF torpedoes talks)

There has been a flurry of speculation regarding the truth about the maritime agreement between the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries and China on the launch of Inchon and China container trades. Rep. Park Yong-ho of the Millennium Democratic Party sparked the debated during an inspection of the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries by the National Assembly's Government Administration and Local Autonomy Committee on September 28. He exposed that though MOMAF claimed that it failed to agree on the launch of Inchon and China container trades due to Chinese opposition, their Chinese counterparts, in fact, agreed to open new container trades.

Not to be caught without evidence, Rep. Park showed approval documents from the Chinese in response to a Korean shipping company's application to serve a container trade in Dalian-Inchon-Osaka last December. He said that in this situation, as China agreed to open the container trades, MOMAF is suspect of fabricating results in the Korea China maritime agreement.

In response to this, the maritime logistics division director at MOMAF confirmed that MOMAF strongly insisted on opening Inchon-China container trades during the Korea China maritime conference. Yu Sam-nam, minister of MOMAF, also said that it was difficult to reach an agreement with only one country willing to negotiate.

However, Rep. Park accused MOMAF of outright dishonestly reporting that no agreement on container trade could be reached. He further accused them of trying to protect car-ferry liners citing how when the mayor of Dalian visited Inchon last February, he aggressively stressed launching new container trades.