This Year's Marine and Fisheries Keywords: 'Shipping Reconstruction, Smart, Safety'

Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries Announces '2020 Work Plan Report'

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Joo Sang-don] The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries has identified "visible achievements in maritime reconstruction" as its top priority task this year. The goal is to achieve KRW 40 trillion in shipping sales, including Hyundai Merchant Marine's turnaround to operating profit, to restore the status of the shipping industry to what it was before the Hanjin Shipping crisis.

The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, together with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, announced the 2020 work plan containing these details to President Moon Jae-in at the Blue House State Guest House on the 27th.

◆ Ensuring definite effects in maritime reconstruction = First, the Ministry plans to actively support the recovery of competitiveness and the leap to a global leader of Korea's shipping logistics industry, which has been contracted since the Hanjin Shipping crisis. The goal is to achieve KRW 40 trillion in shipping sales, including Hyundai Merchant Marine's turnaround to profitability. Last year, shipping sales were around KRW 37 trillion.

Kim Yang-soo, Vice Minister of Oceans and Fisheries, explained, "Hyundai Merchant Marine newly joined 'THE Alliance (shipping alliance)' from April this year, and twelve 24,000 TEU vessels are scheduled to arrive from April to September," adding, "With fleet expansion and alliance membership, service routes will increase, price competitiveness will improve, and operations will be strengthened."

However, the goal of Hyundai Merchant Marine's turnaround to profit does not reflect concerns about reduced shipping cargo volume due to COVID-19. A ministry official said, "It is still difficult to estimate the intensity of the COVID-19 impact," and added, "Even if cargo volume decreases, Hyundai Merchant Marine is expected to turn a profit due to its price competitiveness."

To this end, the ministry has launched the 'Excellent Shipper Certification System' to help secure stable cargo. It also plans to strengthen the functions of the Korea Ocean Business Corporation (KOBC) to expand support for shipping companies.

Currently, KOBC's guarantee scope is limited to asset-backed guarantees. The plan is to expand this to include credit guarantees. This will enable credit guarantees for operating funds and support shipping companies when they face operating fund issues.

Additionally, the ministry will actively work on expanding key ports such as Busan, Gwangyang, and Incheon to prepare for ship enlargement and increased cargo volume, along with devising autonomous integration support measures for the shipping logistics industry.

To address the shortage of fishery resources, the ministry plans to focus on reducing nearshore fishing vessels with high fishing intensity and shift to a resource management-centered fishery system. Following the reduction of 375 vessels last year, 126 vessels will be cut this year. In June, a 1,500-ton large-scale fishery resource survey vessel will be launched, and resource surveys will be strengthened by expanding the target species for resource evaluation from 45 to 60.

By August this year, standards will be established to allow large-scale capital to enter aquaculture. The key will be the species, expected to be those requiring large-scale foundational investment and technology accumulation, such as salmon and Pacific bluefin tuna. The ministry explained that one large corporation is already interested. Furthermore, through industrialization research of high value-added species like Pacific bluefin tuna, the ministry plans to expand the future growth base of the aquaculture industry and actively promote the food industrialization of fisheries through the design of the Fisheries Food Export Cluster (Mokpo, Jeollanam-do) and the establishment of a fisheries food promotion plan (December).

◆ Fostering future food sources through smartization = To secure an early lead in the rapidly growing marine new industry market, the ministry plans to focus on fostering five promising new industry sectors: marine bio, underwater robots and drones, marine healing, eco-friendly ships, and marine energy.

Starting with the design of a marine bio industry incubator (Seocheon) in the second half of this year, the ministry will expand the analysis infrastructure (facilities) of the marine bio bank to support the growth of bio companies. It will also support real-world operation by deploying developed underwater robots in actual port construction and pilot the introduction of drones for illegal fishing crackdowns and red tide monitoring.

In regions with excellent healing resources such as tidal flats and salt, marine healing pilot zones will be established. The ministry will develop technologies for converting to eco-friendly ships such as liquefied natural gas (LNG), hydrogen, and electric ships, and establish real-world test sites for marine energy power generation facilities like tidal and wave power to actively promote technology verification.

◆ Improving quality of life for marine and fisheries workers = Measures to improve income and welfare conditions for marine and fisheries workers, including fishermen and seafarers, were also presented. To strengthen the public interest functions of fisheries, the ministry plans to introduce a fisheries and fishing village public interest direct payment system to support fishermen who fulfill public interest obligations such as fishery resource protection and eco-friendly seafood production. Vice Minister Kim said, "In addition to the existing conditional disadvantages, we plan to introduce management transfer, fishery resource protection, and eco-friendly direct payment systems," adding, "We will strive to revise laws in the 20th National Assembly, and if passed, reflect it in the budget to implement from next year."

Management transfer is a form of support where fishing village cooperative membership qualifications are transferred to others to help young people who want to return to fishing villages engage in fisheries. Fishery resource protection involves additional protective measures beyond legally prohibited ones, and eco-friendly direct payments are planned for cases using compound feed instead of raw feed or certified eco-friendly seafood.

Along with this, the ministry will improve living conditions for residents in fishing villages, fishing ports, and coastal areas centered on the Fishing Village New Deal 300 project, and promote port redevelopment to revitalize the local economy, including preparing plans for the redevelopment of Incheon Inner Port.

To create a clean marine environment that the public can feel, the ministry plans to reduce marine plastic waste by expanding collection points for discarded fishing gear (40 locations in 2020) and increasing the number of marine environment guardians (1,000 people). It will also expand marine radiation monitoring stations (from 32 to 39) in preparation for Japan's discharge of radioactive contaminated water and conduct periodic investigations of ballast water discharged from ships entering ports near Fukushima.

◆ Drastic improvement in marine safety in vulnerable areas = To efficiently respond to large-scale accidents caused by ship fires, the ministry will distribute fire alarm devices free of charge to fishing vessels (2,700 nearshore fishing vessels), strengthen safety inspections (from twice every five years to once a year), and enforce mandatory boarding of safety personnel (for vessels with 13 or more people) for fishing boats, implementing special management.

For cargo ships, the ministry plans to expand the scope of statutory inspections for high-risk and sensitive hazardous materials and revise related regulations to require reporting of all hazardous materials within ports.

The ministry will also actively ensure the hygiene and safety of seafood. To strengthen hygiene management of aquaculture farms, it is preparing to promote 200 farm regeneration projects over 10 years (2021?2030), establish eco-friendly certification and grading standards for feed and fishing gear, and add safety standards for aquaculture farm chemicals. Additionally, it will build a cold chain distribution system by expanding low-temperature auction halls, automatic sorting machines, and refrigerated vehicles at wholesale markets, and strengthen crackdowns on large-scale and organized origin violations by expanding mandatory origin labeling items and operating a mobile inspection team called 'Secret Fishermen (Amhaeng-eo)'.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.