Chairman Kang Yeong-il of Korea Rail Network Authority (KR).

Chairman Kang Yeong-il of Korea Rail Network Authority (KR), along with 2nd Vice Minister Choi Jung-ho of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT), greeted a Malaysian delegation headed by Chairman Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar of the Malaysian Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD), who was making a five-day working visit to Korea, at Incheon International Airport on March 29.

Chairman Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar of the SPAD toured Korea from March 29 to April 2 at the invitation of the MOLIT. During the working visit, Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar attended a meeting and a luncheon hosted the MOLIT. 

Chairman Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar had been invited to an opening ceremony of the Honam High-Speed Line last year. 

The SPAD, Malaysia’s public transport commission, is in charge of the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High Speed Rail (HSR) project, the first such one in South Asia. Construction is expected to be launched in 2017 and it is to be completed by 2022. 

In a related development, KR Chairman Kang, on a working visit to Malaysia, met with Malaysian officials on March 4. Chairman Kang’s working visit to Malaysia was designed to help Korea win the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore HSR project. A dean of the University of Kuala Lumpur expressed keen interest in Korean students’ overseas study in connection with KR’s internship program. 

KR Chairman Kang expressed KR’s cooperation in the nurturing of manpower in the railway maintenance and repair field, deem essential for the operation of the projected Kuala Lumpur-Singapore HSR and future development of the Malaysian railway industry. 

Kang met with Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu of India in New Delhi on March 2 and exchanged ways of promoting mutual cooperation, including projects to modernize the New Delhi Station and transform the existing lines into high-speed ones. Earlier, Kang toured the New Delhi Station. In particular, Chairman Kang proposed a short-term educational program for the Indian Railways Ministry based on the rich expertise and experiences Korea has accumulated while carrying out projects to improve the existing lines and develop stations’ neighborhood areas.   

KR Chairman Kang met a Thai government delegation headed by Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak of Thailand, on a working visit here. 

The delegation toured Seoul Railroad Station and other railway facilities. Delegates were given an occasion to be briefed on the current status and the development of the Korean railway industry as well as Korea’s overseas project execution capabilities while touring from Seoul to Daejeon via the Gyeongbu High Speed Line. Thai delegates exchanged views on the current status of the Thai railway and transportation infrastructure with their Korean counterparts.

KR is a quasi-government authority established in January 2004 to be in charge of the construction and management of national rail infrastructure. A relative latecomer in Northeast Asia to the HSR market, South Korea first adopted French systems for its first-generation trains. The nation has since invested heavily in research and developing its own rail systems, and now ranks fourth in the world in terms of high-speed train technologies, after France, Germany and Japan. 

In 2010, a major milestone was achieved when the first made-in-Korea bullet trains were rolled out.

The corporation has fully committed itself to realizing its mission of “Connecting the World with Rail to Create Happiness for the Public,” by successfully completing the construction of Gyeongbu High Speed Line in 2004 and Honam High Speed Line in 2015, expanding the Seoul Metropolitan rail network and modernizing existing conventional lines such as the Honam Line, Jeolla Line or Gyeongchun Line.

KR is planning to open the Seoul Metropolitan High Speed Line (Suseo-Pyeongtaek) in 2016 and complete the Wonju-Gangneung project in 2017 to assist the successful hosting of the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics. 

Those projects will contribute to shrinking the entire nation into a so-called “90-minutes Life Zone.”

Further, with high-end technologies and know-how, KR has accumulated as a railway-specialized authority, KR is actively participating in the global railway market, expanding its rail network far beyond Korea, to Asia, the Middle East and the Americas.

2nd Vice Minister Choi Jung-ho of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) and KR Chairman Kang Yeong-meet with visiting Chairman Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar of the Malaysian Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD), who was arriving at Incheon International Airport on March 29 for a five-day working visit to Korea. (Photos:KR)