Ministry to reopen bidding for Gadeokdo airport after extending construction period
The government said Friday that it plans to reopen bidding within this year for a project to build a new international airport on the Busan island of Gadeokdo.
The decision to resume bidding was made after the government extended its assessed construction period from 84 months to 106 months.
Bidding had failed four times before a consortium led by Hyundai E&C was selected as a preferred bidder in October last year.
But in May, Hyundai E&C demanded the government increase the construction period by 24 months, citing construction accident risks and difficulty with a quality guarantee. It withdrew from the project as it failed to narrow differences with the government and the contract was revoked.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said that the extension of construction period was an inevitable decision to secure safety, but people are staring at the government with cold eyes. Not until Hyundai E&C withdrew from the project because the ministry stuck to the unattainable schedule did the government relent and put forward a new period as the company had demanded.
Prospects for a successful rebidding are not bright, either. Though the construction period was extended, safety and quality issues due to difficult work conditions remain.
The initial target year for opening Gadeokdo New Airport was 2035. Then it was brought forward by more than five years to December 2029, driven by a political desire to support Busan's bid for the 2030 World Expo. Anyone could see that was an impractical change in schedule. Busan lost its bid to host the expo to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The construction of the Gadeokdo airport entails significant engineering difficulties, primarily due to weak ground conditions and the demanding marine environment. Soft ground composed of thick clay is said to be up to 60 meters deep in some areas. The site location is vulnerable to strong winds and high waves during typhoons, all of which complicate offshore construction work.
The modified design requires the airport to be built across both land — by cutting into mountains — and sea — through massive reclamation efforts. This hybrid approach runs the risk of differential settlement between the land- and sea-based sections of the runway.
The original plan was to build the airport entirely on reclaimed land, but it was modified to shorten the construction period in order to open the airport a year before the 2030 World Expo.
The excessively shortened schedule and construction difficulties discouraged companies from submitting their bids.
The Land Ministry said Friday that it increased the related construction budget by 200 billion won ($135 million) from 10.5 trillion won, but a further increase in the government's financial burden is unavoidable, considering inflation of construction costs and need for additional transportation infrastructure connecting to the site.
The decision to build an airport on the island was a product of political populism to gain votes in an election.
In 2016, a French consulting firm evaluated the Gadeokdo site and concluded it was the least suitable of three candidates for a new airport in the southeastern. The evaluation cited significant concerns about the site's engineering difficulties and overall viability. The government decided to extend the existing Gimhae Airport.
But in 2020, the Moon Jae-in administration pushed the Gadeokdo airport project in an attempt to support the Democratic Party of Korea's candidate for the Busan mayoral by-election. Though the opposition People Power Party knew that it was a populist project, it kept in step with the Democratic Party so as not to lose votes. A special law requiring unconditional construction of the airport on the island was passed, and the once-rejected Gadeokdo option was revived due to political intervention.
Politicians must be well aware that the site is unsuitable. Extending the construction period alone without addressing other issues is insufficient. Gadeokdo was the wrong choice from the beginning.
Politicians of both the ruling and opposition parties should review the project from square one.
khnews@heraldcorp.com
