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| President Park Geun-hye speaks at the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) Symposium on Eurasia Transport and Logistics Network at the Hotel Shilla in Seoul, Thursday. / Yonhap |
Park calls for building transport, logistics networks
By Yi Whan-woo
President Park Geun-hye called for cooperation among South Korea, the United States, China and Russia to build a shared transport and logistics network linking Asia to Europe, Thursday.
"It's of foremost importance to link a transport and logistics network in Eurasia in order to realize its unlimited potential," Park said in her congratulatory speech during the opening of ASEM Symposium on Eurasia Transport and Logistics Network in Seoul.
"Setting up such a network, however, will only be made possible when related countries share their visions as well as plans and together build infrastructure accordingly."
Park said that Korea will actively take part and support various development projects being promoted by other Eurasian countries.
She cited her "Eurasia Initiative," Washington's "New Silk Road Initiative," China's "Once Belt, One Road," and Moscow's "New Eastern Policy," which are aimed at linking Asia and Europe via Russia, and open up routes to facilitate the trade of goods, especially energy, in the regions.
In particular, the "Eurasia Initiative" inevitably requires support from North Korea in South Korea's plan to build a Trans-Siberian express railway that will start from Busan and extend to London via Pyongyang and Moscow. The Park government anticipates its project, which was unveiled in 2013, will add to its efforts for inter-Korean unification.
In a separate measure, the two Koreas and Russia have been working on the "Rajin-Khasan project," which is seen as integral to implementing the "Eurasian Initiative."
Under the three-nation project, South Korea pushes to routinely import Siberian coal by means of a railway between Russia's border town of Khasan and North Korea's port city of Rajin.
The President also proposed to unite regulations on transport and logistics among Eurasian nations, saying that regulations work as "barriers" to transporting goods from one country to another.
"It will be very crucial for those nations to standardize and simplify their system on customs, quarantine, immigrations, transshipment considering a number of people and goods will pass gateways of many countries," Park said. "The related countries should compare each other's policies in order to identify their differences and unite them. If necessary, they should undergo rigorous reform and scrap unnecessary regulations."
Park said developing and capitalizing on cutting-edge technologies, such as satellite navigation systems and Internet of Things (IoT), could speed up establishing a unified transport and logistics network across the continent.
"South Korea won't hesitate in sharing our information and communications technologies with our Eurasian neighbors," she said.
The one-day symposium attracted some 500 transportation ministers, scholars and entrepreneurs from member-countries of ASEM, an acronym for Asia-Europe Meeting that focuses on facilitating inter-continental cooperation.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport hosted the symposium in line with Park's proposal in October 2014 during her visit to Milan for an annual ASEM summit. She offered to hold an international conference to discuss ways to upgrade transport and logistics network between Asia and Europe.
Eurasia is the world's largest continent spanning 12 time zones from east to west. It is comprised of 40 percent of the world's land mass, 70 percent of the world's population, and accounts for over 60 percent of the world's gross domestic product.
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