By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter

With the government planning to build the country's next international airport in the southestern region, the competition between cities to bring the gateway near them seems to be getting uglier.

The metropolitan authorities of Busan would prefer the airport to be built on nearby Gadeok Island. Those in the inland towns of the Gyeongsang Province, on the other hand, claim Miryang, nestled between Ulsan and Gimhae, is the ideal location.

The rift that has politicians, local government officials and civilian communities sparring against each other now seems to have extended to the business circle.

Business representatives from the cities of North and South Gyeongsang provinces and the metropolitan cities of Daegu and Ulsan gathered at Miryang City Hall Wednesday to announce a joint statement calling for the new airport to be built there.

They also had support from business officials of South Jeolla Province cities such as Mokpo, Suncheon, Gwangyang and Yeosu, who obviously want the airport to be moved further away from the sea and closer to their region.

``The new airport should be built in Miryang, considering the advanced infrastructure of roads and rail networks that connects the city from all directions, allowing quick and easy access for all residents of the Gyeongsang and Jeolla provinces. The new airport will be the only way the region can achieve top-five status as a business hub in Northeast Asia,'' Cho Yong-jun, Hankuk Fiber chairman and also the head of the Miryang Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said in a prepared statement.

Regional business leaders also questioned why the government extended the period of its research for evaluating the candidate sites for the airport, a process that originally had a September timetable.

Government officials insist that they need more time to investigate the construction costs and the traffic demand for the airport.

However, the Miryang camp is concerned that the strengthening lobby efforts from its competitors in Busan, which clearly shed the underdog tag it had just a year ago, are beginning to take hold.

``This (decision to delay the research) brought great disappointment among the businessmen and residents of the region who had wished for a quicker construction of the southeast airport, and also forces them to doubt the government's commitment to build the new airport,'' Cho said, raising concerns over whether the construction of the airport could start in 2011 as scheduled.

``The new southeast airport is a necessary investment for the country to respond to the expected changes in the international air travel and logistics environment. It would be a key project in achieving balanced regional growth and allowing the region to be at the center of internationalization,'' he said.

The announcement by the Gyeongsang and Jeolla provincial business representatives was criticized by their counterparts in Busan, with Shin Jung-taek, who heads the Busan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, accusing them of spurring public opinion.

``President Lee Myung-bak clearly laid out the standard of conditions in picking the site of the new airport, and there is no need for anyone to sway public opinion to back a certain site,'' Shin said.

The Busan Chamber of Commerce and Industry released a statement Monday that the site of the new airport should not be decided only by regional interest, but also based on considerations of the best location to exploit the expected increase in air transport and logistics.

Busan has been claiming that Gadeok Island has an edge in terms of its accessibility to a major international port and advanced transport networks, as well as having larger freedom for airport expansion if needed.

thkim@koreatimes.co.kr