News / Incheon eyes volume revival with incentives for new ocean services

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Incheon wants to open routes beyond Asia since US tariffs brought a double-digit decline in South Korea’s second busiest port’s regional volumes last year.

The tariffs affected demand for components and intermediate goods from South-east Asia, despite front-loading increasing transpacific volumes by 20% year on year.

The port’s volumes from Thailand fell 20%, to 107,000 teu; Vietnam dipped 2.6%, to 381,000 teu; Indonesian cargo decreased 2%, to 68,000 teu; while Malaysian volumes registered the largest correction, dropping 34%, to 61,000 teu.

Incheon’s overall volumes declined 3.4%, to 3.44m teu. China continued to be its largest trading partner, contributing 2.2m teu, slightly up from 2024’s 2.16m teu.

Hoping to restore volumes, Incheon Port Authority (IPA) held a marketing session for representatives of 13 foreign shipping lines last week, encouraging them to open routes, particularly to India, the UAE and Turkey. The latter two are hubs for used car shipments,  Incheon being South Korea’s largest export gateway for these.

IPA said: “As shipping lines sought to secure exports to the US in advance, fewer containers were moved on routes from South-east Asia.”

So far this year, nine routes have been launched from Incheon, bringing the number of routes connecting to the gateway to 72.

During the marketing session, the shipping executives were told of incentives to shipping lines, forwarders, and cargo owners.

Carriers launching new routes are eligible if they maintain the route(s) for at least a year, make at least 35 port calls over a year, and handle at least 15,000 teu annually with the new service(s). Annual incentives of up to KRW400m ($272,418) are offered for new services to the Americas and Europe, and up to KRW300m ($204,314) for new routes to the Middle East, Africa, and Oceania.

There are also incentives for the shipping lines that are the five largest contributors to Incheon’s import and export volumes, raning from KRW40m ($27,242) to KRW80m ($54,484) per teu. And carriers that tranship at least 1,000 teu through Incheon also qualify for incentives of KRW5,000 ($3.40) per teu.

IPA president Lee Kyung-Kyu said that despite the contraction in volumes last year, the port would strive for a recovery, aiming to handle 3.56m teu this year.