OREANDA-NEWS. October 04, 2013. Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transportation (Minister Seung-hwan Seo) said that it held the groundbreaking ceremony for the 2nd passenger terminal in construction site of the terminal. This 2nd passenger terminal represents one of the main facilities of the 3rd Phase Construction Project.

Around 1,000 people from politics and the government join the ceremony including: Prime Minister Hong-won Chung; Vice Minister Hyeong-goo Yeo of Land, Infrastructure and Transportation; President& CEO Chang-soo Jung.

The Prime Minister said, “Incheon International Airport would raise its status not only in the North East Asia but in the global arena, boosting Korean economy at the same time” adding that the 3rd phase construction project is expected to create 93,000 new jobs and KRW 17 trillion of economic effects, positioning itself as a leading model of creative economy.

He pointed out that the project would also help make the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games as a venue for global festival. In addition, he asked the workers at the construction site to be committed to building high-quality terminal as well as preventing accidents, with a solemn sense of duty.

To meet the passenger demand which has been on the rise over 6% ever since its grand opening on 29th, March 2001, IIAC completed the second phase of the construction project by building the 3rd runway adding to existing ones, and concourse, June 2008.

Because of this growing passenger demand, main facilities such as passenger terminal and apron are expected to be saturated in their capacity by 2017. In that sense, IIAC decided to undertake the 3rd phase construction project with the central plan of building the 2nd passenger terminal.

Many of Asian nations seek for ways to grow their economic size based on strategies to make hub airport which have a great economic ripple effect. Competition among them is also fierce to expand their airport-related infrastructure so that they could dominate the aviation demand in the Asian market.

The 3rd phase construction project would help make IIAC meet the increasing aviation demand as well as leading the competition with neighboring countries, which would be completed by the end of 2017 before the opening of PyeongChang Winter Games.

Around KRW 4.9 trillion would be invested in the 3rd phase construction project among which: KRW 2.2 trillion for constructing the 2nd passenger terminal; KRW 920 billion for building traffic network; KRW 230 billion for the 2nd transportation center.

IIAC’s passenger processing capacity will cover 62 million passengers from today’s 44 million and cargo handling capacity from 4.5 million to 580 million tons, once the 3rd construction project is completed.

During the 3rd construction project, around 93,000 jobs will be created with KRW 12 trillion of production inducement effect and KRW 4.8 trillion of value added.