Busan Mayor Park Hyung-jun Departs for Hamburg, Germany... Promoting Economic Cooperation and the 2030 Busan World Expo

Selected as the Host City for the 834th Hamburg Port Anniversary Festival

Active Promotion of ‘Busan’ as a Candidate City for Expo 2030

Busan Mayor Park Hyung-jun will embark on a diplomatic visit to Hamburg, Germany, from the 3rd to the 7th.

This visit was arranged as Busan was selected as the guest city for the world’s largest port festival, the “834th Hamburg Port Anniversary Festival,” held from the 5th to the 7th. Taking this opportunity, the city aims to promote “Busan” and the “2030 Busan World Expo” and to establish practical economic cooperation with the city of Hamburg.

During the visit, Mayor Park will promote the 2030 Busan World Expo and various attractions of Busan through the 834th Hamburg Port Anniversary Festival and the linked “2023 Korea-Busan Festival.” He will also sign a sister city friendship agreement between Busan and Hamburg, attend an eco-friendly marine conference and investment briefing, meet with influential figures from politics and business, and sign a memorandum of understanding for mutual cooperation among the Busan City Consortium, Busan Port Authority, and HafenCity Company for port redevelopment areas. These activities are designed to strengthen practical cooperation between Busan and Hamburg through a well-organized and thorough schedule.

Currently, Hamburg is undergoing the HafenCity Project, a port redevelopment initiative aimed at revitalizing the area formerly used as the Hamburg Free Trade Port within the city’s administrative district.

On the morning of the 4th local time, Mayor Park will sign the “Busan-Hamburg Sister City Friendship Agreement” with Hamburg Mayor Peter Tschentscher at Hamburg City Hall and hold a joint press conference with the local media.

Through this sister city agreement, the two cities plan to pledge mutual cooperation in their areas of strength, including green smart cities and carbon neutrality, port digitalization and urban regeneration, culture, arts, festivals, tourism, health, education, scientific research, and human exchange.

On the same day, Mayor Park will attend the Busan Port-Hamburg Port Urban Development Roundtable, the eco-friendly marine conference, and the investment briefing held at the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce.

At the Busan Port-Hamburg Port Urban Development Roundtable in the morning, Mayor Park will share the present and future of the two ports undergoing the largest port redevelopment projects in their regions with Andreas Kleinau, CEO of HafenCity Company, Jens Meyer, CEO of Hamburg Port Authority, Norbert Aust, President of the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce, and others, discussing ways to enhance mutual cooperation.

In the afternoon, at the eco-friendly marine conference and investment briefing, discussions will focus on strengthening cooperation with Busan in eco-friendly shipping and ports, as well as shipbuilding and marine equipment sectors, including research on next-generation energy-powered vessels (LNG, hydrogen, ammonia, etc.) involving Korean and German companies. Mayor Park will also introduce Busan’s excellent investment environment in the marine and high-tech industries.

On the same afternoon, Mayor Park plans to meet with the CEO of RWE, Germany’s largest energy company, in the offshore wind power sector to discuss energy transition projects aimed at achieving carbon neutrality.

On the afternoon of the 5th local time, Mayor Park will attend the opening ceremony of the 834th Hamburg Port Anniversary Festival and the linked “2023 Korea-Busan Festival” hosted by Busan.

The Hamburg Port Anniversary Festival, organized annually by the Hamburg Ministry of Economic Innovation, is the world’s largest port festival, held this year from May 5th to 7th. The event features large-scale activities such as ship parades, fireworks, and paragliding, attracting over one million visitors from Germany and neighboring countries.

The “2023 Korea-Busan Festival” is an event hosted by Busan as part of the port festival. Hamburg supports the festival by allowing the guest city and country to hold themed events during the festival period.

The festival includes exhibitions promoting the 2030 Busan World Expo and “Busan,” a Busan city promotional booth, K-POP and Kukkiwon Taekwondo performances, B(Busan)-Food promotional events, and an exhibition of excellent small and medium-sized enterprises from Busan. These events aim to introduce the 2030 Busan World Expo and the candidate city “Busan” to the one million visitors attending the port festival.

At the opening ceremony of the port festival, Mayor Park, as the mayor of the guest city, will board the Rickmer Rickmers ship, the venue of the event, guided by Leonard, the Minister of the Hamburg Ministry of Economic Innovation, the festival’s organizing department minister. He will deliver the opening declaration ceremony and hold a networking session with invited guests from around the world.

Following the port festival opening ceremony, Mayor Park will move to the Korea-Busan Festival venue to participate in its opening event. Through his opening remarks, he will promote Busan’s attractions and the 2030 Busan World Expo and host a reception inviting Hamburg City Council Chair Carola Veit, influential figures from Hamburg’s political and business circles, and key global guests.

At the reception, chefs from Lotte Hotel Busan will captivate attendees’ palates by reinterpreting Busan’s local ingredients and representative Hamburg dishes, introducing the global competitiveness of Busan as a gourmet city.

On the morning of the 6th local time, Mayor Park will sign a memorandum of understanding for mutual cooperation among the Busan City Consortium (led by Park Hyung-jun), Busan Port Authority, and HafenCity Company with Busan Port Authority President Kang Jun-seok and HafenCity Company CEO Andreas Kleinau.

This agreement is designed to encourage and support cooperation between the “Busan Port North Port Redevelopment Area,” where Korea’s largest port redevelopment project is underway, and the “Hamburg Port HafenCity” area, where Europe’s largest port redevelopment project, the HafenCity Project, is being implemented. The three organizations will exchange information on policies and projects in their respective port redevelopment areas and promote friendly cooperation and human exchange between the North Port redevelopment area and HafenCity.

After signing the memorandum of understanding, they plan to tour the HafenCity Project area together to explore specific cooperation plans linked to the North Port redevelopment project.

In the afternoon, as part of the promotional activities for the 2030 Busan World Expo bid, Mayor Park will take the stage at the largest event of the Hamburg Port Anniversary Festival, the “Landungsbr?cke Area KNUST Performance,” to deliver congratulatory remarks to an audience of about 5,000 and actively promote Busan as the candidate city.

Later that evening, Mayor Park will attend the Captain’s Dinner, an event attended by about 250 influential local figures including the Hamburg mayor, politicians, military personnel, and businesspeople. He will use this opportunity to expand the global network with the Hamburg region and actively promote the city of Busan and the 2030 Busan World Expo.

The key figures Mayor Park will meet during this visit include not only Hamburg Mayor Peter Tschentscher, who also serves as the President of the Federal Council, but also the City Council Chair, Minister of Economic Innovation, Chamber of Commerce President, Hamburg Port Authority CEO, HafenCity Company CEO, German Shipowners’ Association President, International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea President, diplomatic corps stationed in Hamburg, local businesspeople, journalists, military personnel, and bank presidents. This diverse range of contacts is expected to give strong momentum to Mayor Park’s “municipal sales activities” promoting Busan.

Mayor Park Hyung-jun stated, “With the rising status of the city brand ‘Busan’ through activities such as the bid for the 2030 Busan World Expo, we achieved the great honor of being selected as the guest city for the world’s largest port festival, the ‘Hamburg Port Anniversary Festival,’ which attracts over one million visitors worldwide, in January. Taking advantage of our participation as the guest city, this visit will foster multifaceted exchanges with Hamburg to create practical economic cooperation. We will actively promote the 2030 Busan World Expo and the candidate city ‘Busan’ to the global visitors attending the port festival and to influential local political and business figures.”

Busan City Hall.

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