Incheon New Port Hinterland Designated as Cold Chain Specialized Zone... "Expecting 600 Jobs and Annual 80,000 TEU Cargo Volume"

Location map of the Cold Chain Specialized Zone in the Incheon New Port Hinterland Complex.

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Joo Sang-don] The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries announced on the 2nd that it will designate the 'Incheon New Port Hinterland Cold Chain Specialized Zone' on the 3rd. This is the first case of designating a specialized zone.

The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries revised the 'Type 1 Port Hinterland Management Guidelines' to cluster similar businesses and specialize them considering the characteristics of each port, and introduced the specialized zone designation system for the first time this year.

The Incheon New Port Hinterland Cold Chain Specialized Zone was designated within the Incheon New Port Hinterland, covering approximately 230,000㎡, to prepare for the increasing demand for frozen and refrigerated livestock and seafood products.

The cold chain specialized zone will be developed as a new concept logistics complex utilizing liquefied natural gas (LNG) cold energy (-162℃) discarded by the nearby Korea Gas Corporation. By using LNG cold energy, electricity costs can be reduced by about 30%, enhancing the efficiency of logistics center operations and contributing to air quality improvement by reducing carbon emissions, the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries expects.

Following this designation, the Incheon Port Authority plans to shift from the existing public competitive selection method for tenant companies to a demand-oriented business proposal method. Through this, they aim to strategically attract global logistics and manufacturing companies capable of generating high value-added cargo.

Additionally, to activate the specialized zone and attract excellent domestic and foreign companies, they are also considering measures to drastically reduce rent or provide benefits to investment companies above a certain scale.

Tenant companies in the specialized zone will be selected by the end of this year through procedures including business proposal submission (July to early August), third-party public offering (September to October), and business plan evaluation. Construction of the logistics center is planned to begin in the second half of 2021.

The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries expects that this specialized zone designation will generate about 650 billion KRW in private investment, create 600 new jobs, and produce approximately 80,000 TEU of new cargo annually. The resulting economic ripple effect is projected to reach about 1.26 trillion KRW.

Kim Jun-seok, Director of the Shipping and Logistics Bureau at the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, said, "We will continue to expand the designation of specialized zones by port and hinterland, such as the Incheon Port E-commerce Specialized Zone and the Busan Port Transshipment Cargo Specialized Zone, to maximize synergy effects among ports, hinterlands, and regional industries."

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