By Kim Yon-se
Staff Reporter
The incoming Lee Myung-bak administration is expected to start work to build a cross-country canal early next year.
Presidential transition committee chairwoman Lee Kyung-sook said Thursday the President-elect told her that it will take about a year to start construction of the canal.
He said, ``Considering the time needed to attract private investment, it will take at least one year before the groundbreaking,'' she told reporters.
The next administration is aiming to see completion of the construction in 2011, one year before Lee Myung-bak's five-year term ends, sources said.
Transition team spokesman Lee Dong-kwan said a public hearing on the mammoth project will be held early next month.
Saying both advocates and opponents of the canal plan will be invited to the first hearing scheduled for then, he said the project will be launched after a series of public hearings.
About 70 percent are skeptical about the project in the era of information and hi-tech, according to a poll conducted by the Seoul Economic Daily, a sister paper of The Korea Times.
Another survey conducted by the Hankook Ilbo newspaper, also a sister company of The Korea Times, showed that 47.6 percent backed the idea, while 38.8 percent opposed it.
Negative effects have already occurred as many speculators have bought land preemptively along the projected canal route.
President-elect Lee wants to make the waterway the nation's main transport artery linking Seoul in the northwestern to the southeastern port city of Busan to cut transport costs and boost consumption.
The former CEO of Hyundai Engineering and Construction plans to link the northern Han River and the southern Nakdong River with the new canal passing through Yangpyeong, Chungju, Mungyeong, Daegu and Miryang.
He said that the project will cost $15 billion and could create some 700,000 jobs. But skeptics said the cost will run as high as $50 billion and foreign migrant workers will fill the dirty, dangerous and difficult jobs.