Busan Mayor Jun Jae-soo revealed his roadmap to remake Busan into a “maritime capital of the nation” to spearhead an era of “New Arctic Shipping Routes”, a huge opportunity for the metropolitan city.
Mayor Jun took office on July 1 and began his mayoral term as the publicly elected ninth-term local government.
In a written interview with NewsWorld, Mayor Jun said, “I will devote myself to accomplishing the goal of making Busan a the maritime capital of the nation. Overcoming Busan’s recession, caused by the unipolar regime of the Seoul metropolitan area, requires a strong growth engine, and the answer is the maritime capital of the nation, which is Korea’s new growth engine strategy,” Mayor Jun said.
The Panstar Acro, a pilot container ship with 2,758 twenty-foot equivalent units in size, launched a 45-day pilot journey via the Northeast Passage on Aug. 22.
The vessel will sail through the Arctic route and call at Felixstowe in England, Rotterdam in the Netherlands and Gdansk in Poland, before returning to Busan.
He stressed the transformation of Busan into a supersize smart port with a focus on Busan New Port will allow it to make a leap to become a core hub port for Arctic shipping routes.
Busan Mayor Jun Jae-soo presides over a 100-day emergency meeting to focus on the public’s livelihoods with ward and county heads as well as economic circle notables as his first duty as the new mayor of the Busan Metropolitan City Government after he skipped off his inauguration ceremony on July 1.
To this end, Mayor Jun enumerated steps to provide support, such as the introducing of loading and logistics systems with AI and automation technology applications, building an exclusive terminal to handle cargo from and to Arctic shipping routes.
The city will also build a backwater complex, an eco-friendly multi-purpose energy terminal to supply eco-friendly energy, such as LNG, methanol and ammonia. A maintenance, repair and operating (MRO) cluster will be created for large-sized ships.
Also to be built are a cold chain logistics complex for frozen and freezing cargoes and an integrated information platform designed to prove real-time information on melting, weather and shipping conditions for Arctic shipping routes.
The mayor said the municipal government will implement steps in cooperation with MOF, Busan Port Authority and other public institutions.
Korea also plans to build networks and expand international cooperation with Arctic coastal countries, because cooperation with Arctic Circle countries is essential, Mayor Jun said. Korea has already become an observer of the Arctic Council. Busan Port Authority has been expanding cooperative channels with the Arctic Council.
Busan Mayor Jun Jae-soo holds with officials of the Busan Metropolitan City Government to look into their preparedness against summer natural disasters on July 2.
In a related development, the Busan Metropolitan City plans to establish sisterhood relationships and cooperative networks with major cities of the Arctic Circle and strike an MOU with the Arctic Economic Council. Busan plans to ramp up practical international cooperation with each of the cities.
The municipal government strives to make Busan a global hub city of the Arctic shipping routes, as Busan is at the center of international discussions over the routes by hosting international maritime events, such as the 2027 AIVP First General Conference and 2028 UN Ocean Conference.
The 4th UN Ocean Conference, taking place in Busan in 2028, will bring together about 20,000 people from 193 UN member states, international organizations and NGOs to discuss key ocean-related issues.
Busan will host the UNOC in 2028, the first time it will be held in a non-Western country.
The event will take stock of the Sustainable Development Goal 14: the conservation and sustainable use of oceans, seas and marine resources. Busan wants to be recognized as the maritime capital of the nation and to make seamless preparations to successfully host the 2028 UNOC.
As for the key roadmap for making Busan the maritime capital of the nation, Mayor Jun said, “Four functions need to be converged organically through the relocating of maritime-related public entities, the opening of the Busan Marime & International Commercial Court in 2028, the settling of large-sized shipping companies, including HMM and the establishment of Southeast Region Investment Corp. to accomplish the industry ecosystem that will lead the era of the Arctic shipping routes.”
The convergence of the four functions will have synergetic effects to solidify foundations for Busan’s maritime industry and its future growth. It will be a new growth engine for Busan, Ulsan and Gyeongsangnam-do, the maritime metropolitan area and the southern part of the Korean Peninsula.
“The possibility of change has been confirmed, as the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, as well as shipping companies, including Heung-A Shipping, have already been relocated,” Jun said.
The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries settled into Busan as a maritime administration control tower last December at an unprecedented pace.
The law and regulations to establish the Busan Marime & International Commercial Court, a judicial infrastructure for solving maritime disputes in a swift and professional fashion, was approved by the National Assembly last February.
The Busan Metropolitan City government will provide full support to open the court in March of 2028 without a hitch.
Busan Mayor Jun Jae-soo lists to complaints and grievances citizens experience at a meeting at the Dongrae Market on Aug. 11.
Mayor Jun said, “Youth have started to be aware of opportunities in Busan, and I will make sure Busan will be a city in which they can settle down and make a living in. I will devote myself to make citizens’ lifes affluent and Busan’s future bright, in such as way that they can sense changes, not ending up shouting fancy slogans,” he said.
As Mayor Jun took office, he placed the Busan Metropolitan City Government in a 100-day emergency mode to focus on the public’s livelihoods.
He reorganized his municipal government by inaugurating the Maritime Capital Strategy Office and AI Industry Innovation Bureau.
Mayor Jun does not see North Port, a New Airport and Arctic shipping routes as being separate from each other. His future map of Busan shows that North Port, a new airport at Gadeok Island, Busan Port and Arctic shipping routes will be inter-connected.
“North Port should be the heart of the maritime capital of Busan, so we have to have a “tri-port competitiveness,” bridging the world and Busan through connectivity with the new airport at Gadeok Island and Busan Port.
In particular, Mayor Jun pined high hopes on Arctic shipping routes. He said the opening of the shipping routes will be a huge opportunity for Busan, and the important thing is having inter-connected industries, such as financing, insurance, logistics, RMO, eco-friendly fuel and R&D settle into Busan.
He said only higher traffic volume at the port is not enough, and the goal is to making a structure in which companies earn money in Busan and earn a living there.
Mayor Jun also stressed AI as another axis. To achieve that, the municipal government has inaugurated the AI Industry Innovation Bureau.
He said it is essential to raise the competitiveness of conventional industries by utilizing AI, and Busan’s conventional manufacturing industries, such as footwear, fashion and textile sectors, will be transformed into new industries if they are combined with AI.
Mayor Jun is not separating youth issues from his municipal government’s industry policies.
He said, “Youth will have to study, land jobs, get married, have kids and raise them in Busan, and the core of Busan’s population policies is making Busan a city in which youth who left want to come back.”
He also intends to move away from focusing on numbers. Mayor Jun said, “We have to shift our tourism policy paradigm into one in which tourists want to stay here longer, spend more here and revisit Busan.”
In order to make tourists stay longer and spend more in the city, he said, the municipal government plans to combine wellness, night tours, gourmet food and water sports, and widen paths for tourists from the downtown “Old City” to western Bussan.
_부산시장 인터뷰01.jpg)
_부산 민생 100일 비상조치 대책회의2.jpg)
_여름철 자연재난 대비 점검회의.jpg)
_민생100일 동행간담회 2.jpg)
