Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries Designates 'Incheon Port E-commerce Special Zone'... Expecting 360 Billion KRW Private Investment

Second after the 'Incheon New Port Cold Chain Specialized Zone'

Location of Incheon Port E-commerce Special Zone.

[Asia Economy Reporter Joo Sang-don] The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries announced on the 5th that it will designate the 'Incheon Port E-commerce Special Zone' on the 6th.

The Ministry revised the 'Type 1 Port Hinterland Management Guidelines' to cluster and specialize similar businesses considering the characteristics of each port, and introduced the special zone designation system for the first time this year. The newly designated 'Incheon Port E-commerce Special Zone' is the second, following the 'Incheon New Port Cold Chain Special Zone' designated in June.

The Incheon Port E-commerce Special Zone was designated within the Aam Logistics Complex 2, covering approximately 250,000㎡, to foster Incheon Port as a specialized port for e-commerce in line with the continuously growing e-commerce market trend.

With this special zone designation, the Incheon Port Authority plans to strategically attract global e-commerce companies capable of generating high value-added cargo in a timely manner by introducing a third-party bidding method through business proposals, moving away from the existing public competitive selection method for tenant companies. The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries expects that the introduction of the third-party bidding method will resolve the issue of low participation due to the burden of the existing public competitive method and enable more diverse high value-added business proposals.

Additionally, the Incheon Port Authority is also considering measures such as rent reductions based on investment scale and incentives based on future cargo volume and job creation performance.

Tenant companies for the special zone will be selected by the end of this year through procedures including business proposal submissions (September), third-party bidding (November), and business plan evaluations. Construction of the logistics center is scheduled to begin in the second half of 2021.

The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries expects that this special zone designation will generate about 360 billion KRW in private investment, create over 500 new jobs, and produce approximately 50,000 TEU of new cargo annually.

Kim Jun-seok, Director of the Shipping and Logistics Bureau at the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, said, "As consumer items through e-commerce have diversified from small products such as cosmetics to medium and large items like TVs and furniture, demand for maritime transport is expected to expand further. Especially with the increase in non-face-to-face consumption, we hope that the designation of the e-commerce special zone will enable South Korea to lead the global e-commerce market."

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