Yeosu Expo, Base for
Shipping Industry's Next Phase

By President Park Chung-won, Hanjin Shipping Co.

"Yeosu, Coree,"came the announcement from Paris on Nov. 27, the good news that the entire country had been waiting to hear for the last five years.
Yeosu City failed to secure the hosting rights for the 2010 Expo to Shanghai five years ago. But the city bid for the hosting rights again for the 2012 Expo and won this time as the result of a grueling campaign by everyone concerned, showing the world again Korea's great potential and, especially, her tenacity.
This writer joined a government delegation to tour a number of key European countries in September to drum up their support for Yeosu. I also participated in the '2nd International Symposium'staged by the Yeosu 2012 Expo Bid Committee and took time out to meet with Indonesian government officials and requested their country's support for the Yeosu cause.
In October, I visited the Southeast Asian country by myself and called on the Commerce and Industry Minister to ask for his support.
'The Living Ocean and Coast,'is the theme for the upcoming Yeosu Expo. This is significant because the world is faced with climate change, environmental degradation and drying up natural resources, problems which need to be addressed. Both developing and advanced countries must lend each other a hand to take care of the problems in order to prosper together.
In my opinion, the appropriateness of the theme is one of the factors that brought victory to Yeosu against a formidable challenge from rival Tangier, Morocco. Many countries agreed with the currency of the theme and cast their votes for the port city located on the southwestern coast of the Korean Peninsula.
The government projects that the Yeosu expo will bring a huge economic benefit to the country, including 10 trillion won in extra productivity, 90,000 jobs, and a construction boom, so much so that it can be called an economic and cultural Olympics. The government plans to foster Korea as an advanced maritime country through the world expo in Yeosu, hence its theme. I totally agree with the assessment.
The 21st century is the age of the ocean. Civilization developed using the seas wisely to its advantage and the maritime industry has a wonderful industry that developed using the seas.
As is widely known, the shipping industry moves 90 percent of goods traded around the world, playing an integral role in the world economy.
According to UNDP statistics, Korea, with a gross ship tonnage of 29.67 million, is the 8th largest maritime country in the world.
When recalling that Korea had only 38,000 tonnage of ships in 1950, the industry has made a great leap in growth. To create something from nothing is the appropriate expression to describe the fantastic development of Korea's maritime shipping industry.
Such astounding growth is the result of a number of factors including the geographical location of Korea, easily accessible to shipping lanes connecting Europe, Asia and North America, the introduction of ship financing and tax based on tonnages and the timely efforts by shipping companies to secure ships in tune with the trends in the shipping business.
But the industry still has many challenges ahead. It has to cope with the expansion moves by shipping firms in Japan and Europe, which have been dominating world shipping, and the competition waged by the up and coming Chinese commercial shipping firms. The industry needs to expand the number of ships and funding is hard to come by.
I think if the shipping industry, in lock step with the shipbuilding industry, is continuously fostered under a national policy as a high value-added industry taking advantage of the 2012 Yeosu Expo, it will not be long before Korea becomes one of the world's top maritime shipping countries.
Equally as important as the expansion of shipping fleets is the industry taking the lead in international activities to address environmental problems in the ocean and other issues, such as the protection and advantageous use of the seas.
With the Yeosu Expo raising world attention on the preservation and development of the ocean, the shipping industry should also pay great attention to the issue.
I feel my heart race when I think about the excitement that the great event in Yeosu will bring to the world in 2012 with its high-tech marine tourism facilities, its natural environment still preserving its beauty and the pleasure of taking a ride in a cruise ship built at a Korean shipyard.
I sincerely hope the Yeosu expo will be a great success, and offer my deep appreciation for those who worked hard to bring the event to the port city. nw

President Park Chung-won
of Hanjin Shipping Co.