8 New Domestic Marine Technologies to Be Reflected in 'Port, Fishing Harbor, and Construction' Designs Starting Next Year

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Joo Sang-don] The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries announced on the 29th that it has finally selected eight domestic new technologies as candidates for the 2021 pilot construction support to increase the utilization of new technologies in the marine and fisheries construction sector and to promote technology development.

Pilot construction is a system in which patents or new technologies without on-site construction records are given opportunities to be applied to certain parts of construction projects to verify their performance, with costs and appropriate spaces provided by the government.

The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries introduced and has been implementing the pilot construction support system since 2018, the first among government ministries, to break the vicious cycle where domestic new technologies with high economic and technical value are not utilized due to lack of performance verification and construction records, which in turn suppresses investment in technology development.

Since the introduction of the system, a total of 28 new technologies have been submitted and, after review by a committee composed of private experts in the relevant fields, seven new technologies have been selected as pilot construction support candidates and related procedures such as design are underway.

This year, among 11 new technologies submitted, five were selected after comprehensive review of the evaluation results by the review committee and opinions from regional maritime affairs and fisheries offices. Adding three candidate new technologies submitted in 2019, a total of eight new technologies were finally selected as candidates for the 2021 pilot construction support. Specifically, these include ▲Coastal seawater surface observation system ▲Hook fastening structure for reusable concrete blocks ▲Sofa-type seawater circulation breakwater structure ▲Improved natural stone block units and erosion prevention structures using them ▲Manufacturing technology for asymmetric sofa blocks with forward protrusions ▲Submerged blocks to prevent sand loss ▲Open cell caisson method using crushed stone interlocking ▲Underwater concrete block structure construction method.

The newly selected technologies will be pilot-applied starting next year in port, fishing port construction, and coastal maintenance projects in Busan, Incheon, Gunsan, and Mokpo areas after design by the respective regional maritime affairs and fisheries offices. After the completion of the target projects, the Ministry plans to monitor the construction process applying the new technologies, conduct analysis, evaluation, and verification of construction results to secure highly reliable demonstration data, and revise related technical standards if necessary.

Im Seong-soon, Director of the Port Technology Safety Division at the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, said, "We plan to continuously support pilot construction so that excellent new technologies developed domestically do not disappear meaninglessly," adding, "We hope this will further expand active research and investment in domestic new technologies."

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