By Kim Hyun-cheol
Staff Reporter
Hyundai Heavy Industries will build a new shipyard in Gunsan, North Jeolla Province, Thursday.
The dockyard, on 1.8 million square meters of land at the west coast city with 1.2 trillion won ($1.18 billion) investment, will be equipped with a couple of colossal facilities _ the world's largest 700-meter-long dry dock and a 1,600-ton crane _ when it is completed in August next year.
With this construction, the world's No.1 shipbuilder will have shipyards on all three sides of the Korean Peninsula. It is currently operating shipyards in the southeastern industrial city of Ulsan and Yeongam, South Jeolla Province.
The construction of the first ship at the yard will commence next February aiming for completion in February 2010.
It has already secured 21 orders, which will keep the yard fully occupied until 2010.
``There is a long queue of orders waiting behind us now, so it's sort of inevitable to build the ships and the yard at the same time,'' a company official said.
At the groundbreaking ceremony, President Lee Myung-bak praised the efforts of the province to attract the shipyard and said local governments need to try their best to invigorate their markets and economies.
Moon dong-shin, Gunsan mayor, purportedly visited Hyundai Heavy over 60 times last year to attract the shipbuilder to the port city.
Some 2.8-trillion won in annual revenue and the creation of 11,000 jobs are expected with the dockyard, Hyundai added.
``We hope the decision to build a new shipyard here, not overseas, will lead to the consequence of killing two birds with one stone ― creating jobs and fostering the local economy,'' an official of Hyundai Heavy Industries said. ``It will also contribute to facilitating other companies' domestic decisions.''
The new shipyard is expected to give the maker huge momentum, if it can add another 2.8 trillion won to its books on a yearly basis. Hyundai Heavy had 13.1 trillion won in revenue last year.
Additionally, the large-scale facility will offer significant help to the company in completing existing orders. Currently, Hyundai's remaining orders weigh up to 24,604 compensated gross tons, or 13.6 percent of remaining orders worldwide.