New President Kang Young-il makes his inaugural speech at a ceremony on 

Feb. 18 at Korea Rail Network Authority.

President Kang Young-il of the Korea Rail Network Authority said at his inauguration ceremony on Feb. 18, “I feels a great responsibility as I takes over the helm of Korail and would like to thank the employees for their splendid work to make the rail network in Korea a safe and speedy central means of the transportation, which has been truly an unbelievable achievement, which would have been impossible without your passion and efforts.”

“The nation’s first railroad was opened on Sept. 18, 1899, linking Seoul and Incheon. It continued doing its job during the Korea War transporting military cargoes as well as during the industrial modernization following the war as the country’s main transportation artery,” the new president recalled.

“The nation’s first high-speed railroad opened in 2004, putting Korea on the list of nations with advanced railroad system thanks to your dedication, hard work, and passion with a challenging spirit,” the new CEO said.

“But,” he said, “the situation surrounding the rail authority doesn’t look too bright this year. We now have to work hard for the construction of a rail network extending to Europe as we have done for the development of our national economy and regional balanced development.

“I feel this is the make or break year for our industry to decide whether we will continue to grow or start to decline,” the president said.

Outlining his management objectives, he first noted he will pursue responsible management as a model for a government-run enterprise. The government plans to get tough on the money-losing state-run companies, especially their debt management and loose operations. He said he would like to get rid of old habits, the irregularities accrued over long years of operation, all over the management of the railroad. In the same vein, he also would like to order the government’s three major management ideals be applied to every phase of operations including openness, mutual sharing of information, communication, and cooperation.

The second thing he would like to pursue is to faithfully execute the mission to build railroads and maintain the facilities to solidify the company’s image as a professional railroad management company that provides safe and convenient transportation to the people. 

He said, “The Honam high-speed rail will open in December and the high-speed rail section linking Daejeon and Daegu will also be completed this year and we have to manage the railroad in systematic ways to keep the promises we made to the people. We should work hard to achieve the 2020 Target to make a railroad that can deliver its passengers to any point in the country in an hour and 30 minutes by 2020 by completing the 2nd national railroad construction in time without a hitch. We have to complete the extension of the railroad by 642 km, turn 559 km of railroad into high-speed rail, and boost the electrification of the railroad to 74.4 percent, and the improvement ratio to 47.8 percent by 2017. 

“The third point is that the quality of the railroad should be upgraded in terms of service and technology. The Creative Economy being pushed by the government means an economy with creative ideas for growth. We have to train the employees as creative personnel with passion who challenge every hardship in their way so they can help the rail authority to grow and develop.

“Finally, we have to create a mutual survival organizational culture through clear and open communication with the rail authority. Internally, we have to make communication smooth among management, the union, and employees, and externally, we have to share diverse knowledge and experience freely with the people, rail construction firms, and cooperative firms with sound feedback for mutual trust and survival cooperation,” Kang concluded.