Raising Productivity, Services
- BPA President Choo strives to improve Busan harbor


Busan Port Authority celebrated its first founding anniversary Jan.17 in a ceremony, which was also its New Year reception, along with a seminar on ways to spur BPA's growth.
With regard to BPA's performance record during its initial year of operation, the port authority has nothing to be ashamed about as its handling of containers exceeded the initial target volume at 11 million TEU, averaging 1 million TEU a month under the port authority's continuous aggressive effort to raise productivity, improve services to its customers and the introduction of the volume incentive system. A 8,500 TEU container vessel, the largest container vessel in operation, made a port of call at Busan last year.
BPA officials said they opted to hold celebrative activities in a frugal manner with respect to the current economic conditions. They said the ceremony was also the New Year's reception for the maritime industry and harbor-related organizations as well as an occasion to cite notable employees of the port authority in terms of their contribution to BPA's performance record.
The commemorative ceremony took place at the auditorium on the first floor of the BPA building, where model employees of the port authority were given citations. In the afternoon, a seminar took place in the conference room on the third floor with the title of "the development of Busan harbor and BPA's role." Lee Jae-kyun, director of the Busan Regional Maritime and Fisheries Office, presented a main theme, followed by professor Moon Song-hyuk on "the direction of BPA's development." Professor Lee Cheol-young of Hanyang University presided over the panel discussion following the presentations of main themes.
At 6 p.m. a New Year's reception as well as a commemoration of BPA's founding anniversary was held with some 250 people representing BPA, the Busan Regional Maritime and Fisheries Office, and the Busan Harbor Development Council. Minister of Maritime and Fisheries Oh Go-don also attended the reception.
BPA will redouble its efforts to boost productivity and services. It will also make sure that the new port will be continuously developed without hitches, along with the logistics lot and the preparations for redevelopment of the North harbor.
Minister Oh said the government plans to form so called "the Committee for Strengthening Competitive Power of Busan Harbor," to raise the competitive strength of Busan harbor. In his New Year's speech, the minister said he will set up a comprehensive plan and execute it which would involve the revamping of facilities at Busan Harbor, rearrangement of its functions, boosting productivity to the level of an advanced country and the formation of clusters for logistics work creation.
He said Busan needs detailed strategy and vision to be able to compete with such first-class world ports as Hong Kong, Singapore and Rotterdam as the only Korean port with an international image and international competitiveness.
Minister Oh said Busan needs government help for its maritime logistics business like Gwangju's mining industry, and Daegu's textile industry to boost its productivity. He said Rotterdam, the world's 7th largest port in terms of cargo, created value-added businesses worth $24.5 billion, 15 times that of Busan.
In the meantime, the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries announced that it has begun to draw up details of the plan to purchase a 370,000 pyeong lot behind the northern Busan container port of the new Busan harbor in consultation with other related government agencies such as BPA and Busan City Development Corp. so that an agreement may be reached in March to pave the way for the opening of the new harbor in January of next year.
BPA President Choo Jun-sok, in his speech at the ceremony, said BPA will do all it can to boost its productivity, improve services, develop a new Busan harbor, a logistics lot and the redevelopment of northern Busan harbor.
Choo said BPA recorded a net profit of 10 billion won last year thanks to port sales activities done over six occasions in such key ports as New York, Shanghai and Kobe and the opening of 10 new container shipping routes.
He said the enviable record has also been owed to the rapid recovery of typhoon damage at the new Gamman harbor occurred in 2003, and an intense marketing effort by BPA. He also noted the discount in stevedoring fees, quick maintenance of harbor facilities, the increase in the number of cranes, local tax reduction on stevedoring facilities and ships and the exemption of value-added tax on cargoes, have played a role in the strong performance of BPA last year.
Critics, however, said that BPA has a lot to improve. It has to diversify its revenue sources, not merely relying on rents and harbor user fees.
They also pointed out that BPA should be able to control all phases of the Busan harbor, not just harbor facilities, including ship berth and disembarkation charges.
They also noted that it would take around 10 years for BPA to be financially independent, although BPA officials believe they can be independent by 2008. nw