Earlier settlement of two top systems

From this year, the Korean government will expand investment budgets for the Pusan New Container Port and the Port of Kwangyang, focusing on fostering the two ports as northeastern Asia hub ports.

The Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (MOMAF) announced that it will allocate KRW 573.1 billion, jumping up 28% from the previous budget; the funds will be spread among the seven parts of the new port development project. Especially, the Pusan New Port and Kwangyang Port will be given 54% and 36% budget increases over the last year. Accordingly, the Pusan New Port will open three berths in 2006 and Kwangyang is pushing to obtain a total of 12 berths by 2003.

As development on the three berths in the Pusan New Port southern container terminal has been quite slow, the government has stepped in to speed things up.

The government revealed that it would heavily expand new port development investments in order to attract more transit-cargoes expected in northeast Asia after China’s entry to the WTO. It said that global shipping companies are transferring operations to a few mega ports in main trunk routes with larger container vessels. Therefore, it is believed that the right time for development of new ports will allow it to pre-occupy the title in the Asian hub port competition.

In the race to build the latest and greatest port, Kobe is adding ten more berths to its current 37. Shanghai is adding a whopping 92 berths to its 18 berths, while Kaohsiung will increase to 50 berths from 27. Singapore will add 39 more berths to its current 41.

Pusan ranked 3 in the world by handling 7.9 million TEU of container cargoes in 2001, among which transit cargoes accounted for 2.89 million TEU. Chinese born transit cargoes were responsible for 56% of the total transit cargoes.