Korea Shipowners' Association signs MOU to strengthen mooring safety training at Busan Port

The Korea Shipowners' Association is joining forces with partner institutions to strengthen safety training and reduce accidents during mooring operations at Busan Port.

The association announced Tuesday that it signed a port safety education MOU with the Busan Port Authority, the Korea Port Training Institute and the Busan Port Industry Association on Monday.

Mooring work involves securing or releasing a vessel's lines as it berths at or departs from a pier. At busy commercial ports handling large ships, even a minor mistake can result in casualties or disrupt vessel schedules, making safety training and skills management critical.

The four institutions pursued the MOU to prevent accidents during mooring operations at Busan Port and to create conditions in which workers can perform their duties in compliance with safety standards.

Under the agreement, the four institutions will fulfill their safety training obligations under the Special Act on Port Safety and other relevant laws, while building a regular, field-tailored training framework that goes beyond formality. The aim is to improve accident prevention by incorporating the specific characteristics of port work and real-world risk factors into the curriculum.

The Korea Shipowners' Association and the Busan Port Authority will also work together to raise mooring workers' training participation rates and improve the quality of instruction. This year, the association plans to subsidize some training costs and contribute to upgrading training facilities.

Port safety directly affects not only the welfare of seafarers and port workers but also vessel schedules and logistics flows. Busan Port, as South Korea's largest container port, is one where workplace safety management is inseparable from overall competitiveness.

Yang Chang-ho, the association's standing vice president, said the MOU's primary goal is to ensure that only workers verified through rigorous safety training are deployed on member companies' vessels. "Through this, we will not only secure the safety of workers on the ground but also do our utmost to prevent major accidents so that member companies' ships can use Busan Port with confidence," he said.

The Korea Shipowners' Association said it will use the MOU as a springboard to intensify industrial accident prevention efforts related to mooring work at Busan Port and to sustain an inter-agency cooperation framework dedicated to port safety.