ASIA

Busan port strives for autonomy

14 years ago

Busan Port Authority (BPA) says that it has been given permission by the South Korean government to act autonomously as a public enterprise.

Busan port has a tough transhipment target to meet if it wants to retain autonomy

This should in effect give the port authority sole responsibility for the management, administrative duties and the work force and give it overall accountability for its own budget.

However – there are reportedly strings attached. BPA will apparently be under an obligation to achieve the goal of processing 9.6m teu of transhipment cargo during 2013, which is quite a tall order.

Container volumes reached 17m teu in 2012 and according to BPA, roughly 47% of this total was transhipment cargo, meaning that its annual transhipment cargo level currently stands at around 8m teu. So there is still work to do to do to up throughput.

Throughput is already up 5% year on year though despite a sluggish domestic economy and BPA is anticipating good growth going forward so is optimistic that it can meet the target.

The news this week comes at the same time that BPA is heavily investing in new facilities and infrastructure, see Forward Commitment in the March issue of Port Strategy.

Handling its own budgets should certainly make its build projects, including the 45 container berths under construction at Busan New Port, easier to manage.