사진 확대 Busan Mayor Jeon Jae-soo (left) and Hanwha Ocean President Jeong In-seop take a photo after signing a memorandum of understanding to build an additional Hanwha Ocean Busan Engineering Center at the Busan City Hall on the 21st. Busan City
The axis of domestic shipbuilding and maritime industries is rapidly gathering in Busan. Following Samsung Heavy Industries, Hanwha Ocean is expanding its R&D base in Busan, and Busan is making a leap into the maritime capital as the IHO infrastructure center and marine financial institutions are nesting one after another.
On the 21st, the Busan Metropolitan Government signed a memorandum of understanding with Hanwha Ocean to establish an additional Busan Engineering Center at the city hall. Under the agreement, Hanwha Ocean will invest more than 13.6 billion won to establish an additional 2,700 pyeong (about 8,925㎡) Busan Engineering Center in Busanjin-gu. By 2028, it plans to hire new design, R&D specialists in the merchant ship and offshore plant fields.
Hanwha Ocean initially established an engineering center in Jung-gu last year to preemptively respond to the expansion of orders for special ships and offshore plants. While operating the existing center, it confirmed the possibility of receiving professional Busan technical personnel and stable human resources, and expanded investment to foster Busan as a major design and R&D base.
Samsung Heavy Industries also announced the relocation of its R&D center in Busan last month. Samsung Heavy Industries will invest 8.6 billion won to expand its R&D center to 1,700 pyeong (about 5,619㎡) in Munhyeon Financial Complex in Nam-gu while increasing orders in the North American market. It also plans to hire new marine design and research personnel by 2028.
The successive expansion of investments by large shipbuilding companies is expected to serve as an opportunity to transform the industrial structure to attract high-quality R&D personnel and core technology functions of companies that were concentrated in the Seoul metropolitan area to Busan.
The Busan Metropolitan Government expected that the increase in jobs specializing in design and R&D in the marine and shipbuilding sectors will increase the number of employment options for local young people, and a virtuous cycle structure will be formed in which talent produced by local universities will be employed and settled in local companies.
The establishment of global maritime standards and marine financial ecosystems will also accelerate. The International Waterway Organization’s infrastructure center will also open in Munhyeon Financial Complex next month. The center is an organization dedicated to the International Hydrographic Organization’s technology that conducts tasks such as maritime chart management, marine information standard development and operation, and research and operation tests following the commercialization of new digital charts (S-100).
The International Hydrographic Organization is an intergovernmental international organization established in Monaco in 1921, and this is the first time an organization outside the secretariat has been established in another country. As Busan takes the opportunity to take the lead in the global maritime and maritime information market worth about 300 billion won per year and the maritime mobility market worth about 362 trillion won, related companies at home and abroad are already inquiring about the establishment of branches.
Marine financial institutions are also gathering in Busan. Busan has attracted investment in ship finance, the Korea Shipowners Mutual Insurance Association, which supports risk management of shipping companies, and investment in private investment capital and growth companies in marine and shipbuilding as a world that provides ship investment and management and financial solutions. As ship finance and shipowner insurance institutions come to Busan, one-stop marine finance services for the shipping and shipbuilding industries such as ship trading, financing, insurance and risk management are expected to be possible in connection with policy financial institutions (Korea Development Bank, Korea Export-Import Bank, and Korea Trade Insurance Corporation) accumulated at the Busan International Financial Center (BIFC).
The establishment of the Southeast Investment Corporation and the opening of the Maritime International Commercial Court, which are the pledges of the 9th popular election, are also scheduled by 2028, and the creation of the southern maritime metropolitan area in Busan, Ulsan, and Gyeongnam is gaining momentum to overcome the Seoul-centered one-pole system.
[Reporter Kim Jin Ryong from Busan]