[ Port Service charges to be liberalized from next year ]

The various charges like port dues, wharfage, tuggage and pilotage etc
., are expected to be fully liberalized from next year.
According to the Korea Maritime and Port Administration (KMPA), they
are planning to submit the revised package of the Korean Port Laws to
the National Assembly in its the regular session during September.
The cores of this revision will be that in the future KMPA will in th-
eir full discretion fix the various charges for using port facilities
whilst up to now such various tariffs have been actually determined up
on the governing regulation from the Ministry of Transportation and in
the meantime, such expenses as port dues, dockage, anchorage fees, and
tuggage etc., will be based on the reporting system instead of the
current licensing system.
With the revision of the law, KMPA are reported to draw up the plan for
unification and simplification of the current tariff system.
In actual fact, the various port charges have been applied to each port
equally without considering the quality of each port but in the future
such charges will be varied depending on each port’s respective di-
fferent quality of service and at the same time they will further try
to combine the wharfage with dockage for each user’s convenience sake
.