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The Republic of Korea has proposed shipping container service on a trial basis between its southeastern port of Busan and the North Korean port Najin, the inter-Korean section of a trans-Asian railroad (TAR).
The Ministry of Construction and Transportation said Friday (Sept. 22) that the proposal was made at the meeting of the 4th coordinating committee on the trial run of the container transport in the TAR's northern section held under the auspices of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP).
The meeting was held in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan on Sept. 19-20.
Russia expressed its strong support for the proposal, a transportation ministry official said, adding that North Korea did not dispatch its delegation to the meeting.
The committee comprises eight nations _ Republic of Korea, North Korea, Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Belarus and Poland.
The demonstration run will be possible following the completion of the renovation work of the 55-km railway between Najin in North Korea and Khasan in Russia scheduled for the end of this year, agreed upon between the two nations during a meeting of three operating nations held last March in Vladivostok.
In the inter-Korean transport section, containers are loaded on a freight train at the inland container dock (ICD) in Uiwang, Gyeonggi-do, move to Busan, the last destination of the South, on the Gyeongbu (Seoul-Busan) railway line and are transshipped onto a ship at the port bound for Najin in the North.
The container freight is loaded onto the train again bound for Khasan, Moscow and other European destinations on the Trans-Siberian Railway (TSR).
Republic of Korea will get a chance to check security, standardization and simplification of customs clearance procedure, accuracy of the freight train schedule and efficient retrieval of used containers in the North in advance if the demonstration service is materialized, the ministry said.
“The trial transportation of containers is important as it would trigger the introduction of trans-Korean railroad to be linked to TSR earlier than expected,” said Lee In-shik of the ministry.
The source of news: Korea.net September 23, 2006
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