Two Koreas, Russia launch tripartite cooperation on transport project

SEOUL -- The Republic of Korea (ROK), the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and Russia launched a tripartite cooperation with the test-run of coal transport project using the DPRK-Russia railway and port, Seoul's unification ministry said Monday.

About 40,500 tons of flaming coal was test-transported by sea route from the DPRK's port city of Rajin to ROK's southern port city of Pohang over the weekend. Before heading for Pohang, the Russian coal was transported via the 54-kilometer railway from Russian border city of Khasan to the Rajin port.

Unification Ministry spokesman Lim Byeong-cheol told a press briefing that it was a starting point of the tripartite cooperation between the two Koreas and Russia, saying it was meaningful as a pilot project to gauge feasibility of the Eurasia Initiative advocated by President Park Geun-hye.

The pilot project came as South Korean President Park Geun-hye and her Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin held a summit meeting in Seoul in November last year, when the two leaders agreed to let a consortium of South Korean companies join the Russia-DPRK railway project linking Rajin port to Khasan.

Officials from the consortium, including South Korean steelmaker POSCO, shipping firm Hyundai Merchant Marine and state- run Korail Corp, visited the Rajin port to oversee the whole process of the test-shipping.

The consortium is expected to sign a deal to gain a stake in the DPRK-Russian railway project from Russia, which controls 70 percent stake in the project. The DPRK holds the remaining 30- percent stake.

The railway project was launched in 2007 to renovate the 54- kilometer railway and modernize the DPRK port as part of efforts to develop the DPRK port city as a major trans-shipping port in Northeast Asia.

If the deal is signed, the project importing coal from Russia via the DPRK port would reduce the shipping costs of POSCO.