Busan Port Authority expanding in Korea and London

Busan currently ranks as the fifth largest container port in the world, handling 17.7m teu in 2013, and has plans in place to maintain its position through expansion of both its new and old ports.

Busan's container traffic is split between the new and old ports, which handle 65% and 35% of container traffic respectively, separated by around 25 km over land or 40 km by sea.

At the site of the Busan New Port, plans are underway to add a further 22 berths and 6.6m teu capacity to the existing 23 berths and 9.23m teu capacity by the year 2020.

The port aims to become the logistics hub for North East Asia, and has already seen significant increases in local transhipment throughput. Increases in transhipment volumes are a consequence of the increasing size of the average container ship, said BPA president Lim Ki-tack, and the port is expecting to see continued growth in that area.

"Busan is located in the centre of the North East Asian region; even though our port is located in South Korea, we have contributed to the promotion of logistics in North East Asia, including Japan, China and Korea," Lim told an audience gathered at Trinity House in London earlier today. "Around half of our cargoes are transhipment cargoes, around 9m teu in 2013."

While overall container traffic has risen 3.9% in the first nine months of the year compared to 2013, transhipment volumes have grown 6.6% in the same period. Busan handles around 65% of South Korea's containerised imports and exports and 96% of the nation's transhipment cargoes.

Intra-termainal transport (ITT) has been identified as a key area for investment at the port during its expansion, as the efficient movement of containers in and between terminals becomes ever more important in serving the port's 368 weekly services .

As part of the development of the New Port, work is also being carried out to dredge the port and its approach to a depth of 17 m, to allow it to serve larger vessels.

At Busan Old Port, which currently handles around 6.8m teu per annum, an $8.5bn development programme is already under way. A 10-year programme that began in 2009 is creating waterside residential and commercial properties, as well as a new cruise terminal.

BPA's London office is its first outside of Asia, adding to similar representative offices in Tokyo and Shanghai.

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