Busan as Int'l Logistics Hub

City pushing various projects to upgrade its status as maritime, tourism and logistics hubs in N.E. Asia

The City of Busan boasts the world's fifth largest harbor, abundant marine tourism resources and an excellent manpower pool, in fact, all the conditions for its development as a global port city comparable to Hong Kong and Singapore.
Mayor Hur Nam-shik believes that a crisis can be turned into an opportunity and Busan can overcome the crisis early with its potential to be a "marine capital in northeast Asia"in the not-too-distant future. Busan City drew up its 10 largest tasks as the core agenda of a framework to change the basic setting of the port city.
In the '70s, Busan had been a locomotive that pulled the growth of the national economy, but the city lost its momentum in the '80s with many businesses relocating to other areas of the country. Various economic indices of the city began to decline including the per capita regional GDP, requiring the city to find new growth engines.
Busan's key task now is to make itself into an international logistics hub by building various facilities behind the new Busan port and strengthen Korea's international competitive power. So far, over 11 trillion won has gone to finance the city's core projects to secure futuristic growth engines in the Northeast Asian Economic Sphere.
The projected international industrial logistics hub behind the new Busan port is not simply expanding the industrial space, but it is part of the plan to make Busan a global logistics hub with a global competitive advantage as a city with sustainable environmentally friendly and high-class futuristic designs comparable to Shanghai, Dubai and others as a global logistics hub city.
The Central Bay Project is designed to redevelop the North Port of Busan harbor as a gateway to Eurasia and as a global port ― now that the function of the North Port has been transferred to the new Busan Port. It is a strategic project to secure futuristic growth motors for the Busan economy and redevelop the central part of the city, which has been left dilapidated.
The city plans to invest 2.039 trillion won to renovate the North Port and its 1.53 million square meters vicinity, especially the berths for coastal vessels around Pier 4, and build various support facilities for international exchange, a business area and a complex town, among others, in what should be the first harbor redevelopment project in the country. The total cost of the project will amount to as much as 8.519 trillion won if other support facilities are included.
The city conducted a public opinion poll for the project to win the public's support in 2007. Last year, the city completed various administrative procedures, including the environmental and traffic effect evaluation approvals, and the Central Bay Project officially got its start at the end of last year. Work on outlying areas got underway in February and the site will be prepared soon to begin the building of structures.
When the project is completed in 2020, the Busan Harbor will be a gateway to Eurasia linking the Pacific Ocean and the Asian continent and also an international business and marine tourist hub city in Northeast Asia.
The new Busan harbor development project is designed to build 30 berths by 2015, 18 berths built by 2009 and 27 by 2011 and the remaining three to be completed in 2015. In addition, the project involves the construction of a support area in the back of the new port with a total space of 1.095 million square meters. A Northcon support area with a total space of 308,000 square meters will be finished in 2010. The Southcon support area with a total space of 1.42 million square meters and the Woongdong support area with total space of 358,000 square meters are to be completed in 2015.
Busan's projects also include the Munhyun Financial Complex, through which Busan will be a city with financial and business clusters, with an investment of 2.37 trillion won. The city designated the Munhyun area as the candidate area in January so that it will be a specialized financial hub in Northeast Asia centered on marine finance and derivative financial products. The candidate area is 102,352 square meters in size. Yeouido in Seoul is a financial complex dealing mostly with asset management. The landmark building in the Munhyun area will be the projected Busan International Financial Center.
Busan will also build the second hub airport around the city, possibly on Gadeok Island in the estuary of the Nakdong River so that the new airport can be easily linked to the Busan harbor, open 24 hours per day.
Busan will also bid for the rights to host the 2020 Summer Olympics to boost its brand value and for the pride of the 16 million residents in the Yeongnam region.
Among the city's notorious projects is the construction of the Busan Screen Center and other movie related infrastructure, taking advantage of the Pusan International Film Festival, which has become a global movie festival. nw

Mayor Hur Nam-shik of Busan City.