Performance for Ara Waterway not nearly enough to expectation

The performance of Kyung-In Ara Waterway has been disappointing compared to expectations.

The Korean Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs (MLTM) and Korea Water Resources Corp,, (K-Water) announced that the cargo traffic from last December to August this year at the Ara waterway is much lower than expected, carrying only 7,647 TEU of container cargo and 392,000 tons of general cargo.

Korea development Institute (KDI) published the results of its research work 'validity, eligibility and demanding reforecasting about Ara waterway' in December 2008.

According to the research, KDI expected the cargo volume at Ara waterway in 2011 will reach 294,000 TEU for container cargo and 4,462,000 tons for general cargo - 6.325.000 tons for sand, 340,000 tons for cars, 497,000 tons for steel.

However the prediction is far wide of the mark while the actual figure is a more 5% of the projected result.

The low demand caused the low supply - the number of cargo ships that passed through the waterway in the 3 month since May 25 were a meager 93 sailings.

Three container ships have sailed 70 times, 6 bulk carriers for steel have sailed 15 times, and 2 general cargo ships have sailed 8 times through the waterway routes via Busan, Qingdao, and Tianjin. As a result, the average sailing frequency per day didn’t even reach just one a day.

Originally, officials estimated the canal, 80 meters wide and 6.3 meters deep, would be used to transport 930,000 tons of shipping containers, 10 million tons of sand, 60,000 vehicles and 570,000 tons of steel products annually. They also expected passenger traffic through the canal would reach about 630,000 a year.

Kim Tae-Heum, a member of the National Assembly, said, "According to the KDI's report, maintenance and administrative expenses amounted to about KRW 872.1 billion for 40 years, or KRW 21.8 billion per year."

"Although the business is in its early stages, the authorities concerned must consider that It is urgent that measures are taken to secure cargo and passenger demand to not waste the tax-payers' precious money." < 김보람 기자 brkim@ksg.co.kr >