Hanjin Transportation Co. President Suk Tai-soo (right) and Incheon Port Authority  President Kim Choon-sun hold an

 contract on the New Incheon Port 1-1 Container A Terminal Project they signed on June 27. (Photo: IPA)

The consortium led by Hanjin Transportation Co., the priority bidder for the new Incheon Port construction project, signed an official contract involving the construction of upper level installations and the management project with the Incheon Port Authority (IPA), President Kim Choon-sun of the IPA announced on June 27. 

Initially, CJ Korea Express was named the priority bidder of the new Incheon Port 1-1 container wharf A terminal, but the company lost its rights as the priority bidder on December 2012 when it failed to submit its plan to undertake the project by the deadline and the project went to the Hanjin consortium, which applied to undertake the project on Jan. 25. 

The IPA and the Hanjin consortium began discussing the details of the project on Feb. 1 and the IPA finally decided to name the Hanjin consortium as the contractor for the A terminal project.

The A terminal project involves the construction of a wharf 800 meters long with total space of 480,000 square meters and the capacity to berth one 3,000 TEU and two 2,000 TEU container vessels at the same time and the ability to handle 1.2 million TEU containers annually.

The IPA plans to build part of the new wharf with depth of 16 meters to be able to accommodate 10,000 TEU container vessels in response to the demand of the container shippers to open deep-sea routes extending to the U.S. and Europe and in keeping up with the global trend for building bigger container ships.

Hanjin Transportation Co., a leading member of the consortium that also includes Hanjin Shipping and KCTC as members, was the first container shipper in Korea to lead the overseas harbor cargo handling business as a leader of the logistics business operation in Korea. The company also built Korea’s first privately-invested harbor, undertaking harbor cargo handling business from nation to nation and accumulating know-how for harbor operations to be a true leader in the logistics industry in Korea. The Hanjin consortium plans to complete the new terminal in 2015. Hanjin, in addition to operating the container terminal, will also provide one-stop logistics service linking land cargo transport with maritime shipping, thus creating jobs by spurring the new Incheon Port activities and making contribution to the local economy.

In the meantime, the IPA plans to make Incheon Port a logistics hub in Northeast Asia by building and operating a new Incheon Port, which will act as a bridge linking the Seoul area and China and furthermore as a base linking the five oceans and six continents of the world with Korea. The new harbor will also reduce the expenses for cargoes coming in and out of the capital area, with a mighty contribution toward making Korea a competitive nation.

The new Incheon Port is being built on a site located southwest of Songdo City with its wharfs extending for 1.6 km with Hanjin and Sunkwang each operating a container terminal at the wharf. The wharf will be so built as to allow four 10,000 TEU container vessels to berth at the same time, cutting logistics expenses to help Korea become more competitive in the world. The new Incheon Port 1-1 stage container terminal project is just the beginning of the IPA’s plan to build a container and other cargo wharf with room for 30 ships to dock at the same time in the 10th Industrial District of Songdo International City by 2020.

President Suk Tai-soo of Hanjin Transportation said, “The  new Incheon Port project should succeed to be a new growth engine for Hanjin and we will do our best to also spur the local economy of the region surrounding the Incheon Port.”

IPA President Kim said, “The new Incheon Port will be a key harbor in Northeast Asia for logistics and will also link the region to the five oceans and six continents of the world with its high-tech automation equipment, helping the Incheon Port go a step further to the future of the Incheon Port that we dream of.”