SOUTH Korea will invest 14trn Won ($9.8bn) to transform Busan into the world’s biggest container port.

Busan ranked seventh in Lloyd’s List Top 100 Container Ports in 2024, registering a throughput of 23m teu.

The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries announced the plans for the country’s biggest port today, which include building an entirely new port at nearby Jinhae.

When unified with Busan, the so-called “megaport” will be the world’s biggest, the ministry said.

When the project is completed in 2045, Busan will be able to berth 30,000 teu vessels, larger than any containership on the water.

Crucially, all nine berths built in the first phase of Jinhae New Port will be run by a single operator, with a capacity of more than 6m teu.

Multiple terminal operators were cited as an “operational difficulty” by the ministry, which said Busan needed to “transition to a megaport” and improve its operational structure to keep up with the growing size of vessels and strengthening alliances.

Alongside the development at Jinhae, a 3.6m sq m logistics complex will be built nearby with the aim of attracting the world’s biggest logistics companies. Plus, the port aims to increase its proportion of renewable energy generation to 25% by 2032 and 100% by 2050 and be able to bunker ammonia and methanol.

Minister of oceans and fisheries, Kang Do-hyung, said “strengthening protectionism, regional conflicts and changes in shipping alliances” is both a crisis and opportunity for South Korean ports.

The ministry said it was necessary to “pre-emptively strengthen competitiveness” in a bid to keep up with the world’s biggest ports, particularly in China and Singapore.