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Aiming to Reduce Port Workplace Accidents by 50%, Filling All Gaps in Port Safety Blind Spots
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Date
2025.12.08.
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554
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The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries (MOF; Minister Chun Jae-soo) announced that it has established “Measure to Strengthen the Preventions of Safety Accidents at Port Worksites” to prevent safety accidents at port sites and create a work environment where workers can work with peace of mind, and has reported it to the State Council on Tuesday, November 18.
Although the enforcement of Special Act on Port Safety in 2021 reduced the number of accidents at port sites by about 10% from 367 to 330 in 2024 by strengthening safety management with focus on Terminal Operator, fatal accidents at the port persist in other businesses within the port. Moreover, the risk of workplace accidents has increased with increasing ship size, yet small-scale harbor transport company lacks sufficient safety management capabilities.
Accordingly, MOF prepared Measure to Strengthen the Preventions of Safety Accidents at Port Worksites, and it will implement the four major strategies and 11 tasks outlined therein to reduce the number of accidents at port facilities by 50% (330 → 165 cases) by 2030.
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▣ Strengthening disaster prevention activities including imposing obligations to comply with safety rules; harsher punishment against violations
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The measures include Safety Rules that must be strictly observed by all individuals entering and leaving the port to prevent accidents, thereby imposing a compliance obligation. Inspections will be conducted frequently to verify adherence, and penalties for noncompliance such as Access Suspension to the worksite and Fines will be enforced. Moreover, to strengthen safety inspections to prevent disasters at port sites, the number of Port Safety Inspector will be expanded from 11 to 22 in 2026.
Sanctions against businesses found to have violated Serious Accidents Punishment Act will be strengthened as well. Previously, the registration could be canceled if an entity was punished four times within two years; with the new measures, however, the registration can be canceled even if an entity was punished only twice within two years.
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▣ Nurturing the overall safety management capabilities of harbor transport industry
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As larger vessel sizes have increased accident risks, strengthened safety standards such as the introduction of safety equipment will be applied to the registration criteria for industries like Mooring Service Business, Container Lashing Business, Tallying Business, Appraising Business, and Weighing Business. The Ministry plans to subsidize a portion of the costs for companies that introduce safety equipment—such as smart airbags, aerial work platforms, and collision-avoidance devices—to ensure their employees' safety.
Moreover, it will provide professional safety consulting to small port transport companies to help them take preventive measures against accident risk factors. Additionally, to enhance overall safety management in ports, incentives such as additional points in bidding for leased terminal concessions and rewards will be granted to Integrated Service Company with relatively high safety standards to encourage Terminal Operator to integrate safety management practices.
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▣ Strengthening field-centered training and creating safe workplaces together
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MOF will expand the maximum safety training time for low-level workers with relatively higher accident rates from 14 to 20 hours and enhance workers' accident prevention capabilities by reinforcing field-oriented training content, including accident cases by task and risk factors by port.
In addition, the Ministry will operate a consultative body for mutual growth wherein shipping companies, small transport companies, and the government participate to reduce safety accidents by encouraging ▲shipping companies to invest in safety resources for small carriers, ▲small transportation companies to strengthen their safety management capabilities through consolidation and other measures, and ▲the government to provide institutional improvement and support.
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▣ Implementing a smart disaster prevention system tailored to ports using cutting-edge technologies and data including AI
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MOF plans to reclassify and reprocess existing statistics—which have limitations in reflecting port-specific characteristics—for the new establishment of disaster statistics specific to ports. Moreover, it will develop a port disaster prediction system that automatically identifies risk factors and suggests countermeasures by applying the work environment, weather, and disaster data to an artificial intelligence (AI) learning model. This will overcome the limitations of differing judgments based on the safety manager's level of experience and establish a more scientific, systematic safety management system.
The Ministry also plans to introduce a port safety assessment system to evaluate each port's safety management level, reward excellent ports, and provide safety consulting to ports with high risk of accidents to reduce the safety gap between ports.
“Protecting the lives and safety of the people is the top priority of a nation, and safety at ports is no exception. These measures will create a work environment where everyone can work with peace of mind and establish a safety culture, drastically reducing accidents at port sites and breaking the vicious cycle of industrial accidents that recur like those in developing countries,” Minister of Oceans and Fisheries Chun Jae-soo said.
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