[ Container Berths to be established in 3 Ports… ]

Container Berths to be established in 3 Ports on the West Coast.
The KMPA recently announced they are planning to construct 8 berths fo
r handling container cargoes in three ports of Asan, Mokpo and a new p
ort established between Kunsan and Janghang in order to help transport
the container cargo more efficiently and to make any necessary prepa
rations against the growing trade with China.
They also explained that it is more effective to ship cargoes via any
ports on the west coast than through the port of Pusan far from Seoul,
in consideration of the fact that up to now around 90 percent of the
container cargoes on the Korea and China trade have passed through the
port of Pusan but the actual destination of such cargoes centered aro
und the metropolitan area near Seoul.
Therefore, they are planning to build a container terminal of 20,000TE
U capacity equipped with 4 berths with a 13.8 billion won’s investmen
t in the port of Asan by the year of 2011, which will be eventually de
veloped as an alternative port to Inchon through handling various carg
oes to and from Seoul and its adjacent area and further dealing with
direct export/import cargoes from/to China together with Inchon where
the port congestion has been quite enormous.
At the same time, they are going to open a new port between Kunsan and
Janghang which will be developed into a major port handling trades w
ith China as well as a coastal port for handling cargoes for the mid-l
and area by setting up a 20,000TEU berth with about a 13.3 billion won
.
In the meanwhile, with a booming trades between Korea and China, conta
iner cargo volume in this area is also expected to be increased from 2
24,000TEUs last year to around 1 million TEUs in 1998 and 3.5 million
TEUs in 2004.