The government has given advance notice of draft subordinate legislation, including the enforcement decree and enforcement rules, for the Special Act on Support for the Establishment of Green Shipping Corridors. The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy have jointly drawn up and are pursuing the Second Basic Plan for the Development and Distribution of Eco-Friendly Ships alongside it. The government set a goal of supporting the conversion of 889 eco-friendly ships by 2035. The related announcements were released in sequence from the evening of August 27, 2026 to the afternoon of the 28th.
A green shipping corridor is a policy approach in which specific routes are designated and low-carbon and zero-carbon fuel ships are equipped together with fuel supply facilities. The government describes this special act as the world's first law on green shipping corridors. The act is understood to take effect in April next year. The move of the draft subordinate legislation into the advance notice stage is a procedure to meet that implementation schedule.
The Second Basic Plan was prepared to reflect changes in the technological environment and policy conditions at home and abroad. Three tasks were presented: advancing the conversion to eco-friendly ships, creating investment conditions for an eco-friendly shipping industry, and building a full life-cycle carbon emissions management system. The government defined the development and distribution of eco-friendly ships and the establishment of green shipping corridors as the two pillars of shipping decarbonization. How much will be spent on each task and when was not included in this plan.
The figure of 889 vessels is a target set by combining private and public vessels. How many vessels go to each of the two sectors, and how the figure breaks down by ship type, were not released together this time. Depending on which side the vessels subject to conversion are concentrated in, the character of the shipyards receiving orders will also differ. If large merchant ships dominate, the volume flows to large shipyards, and if public service vessels and coastal vessels dominate, it flows to medium-sized and smaller shipyards, which is the usual path.
The government included small and mid-sized shipbuilders and equipment makers, which are weaker in competitiveness than large shipyards, among the recipients of support. It included a provision to support eco-friendly ship design and other areas for these companies. Support items and amounts beyond design were not presented. The same goes for the criteria for allocating support between large shipyards and small and mid-sized companies.
The fact that the government defined the conversion to eco-friendly ships as a means of creating new work for the domestic shipbuilding industry also shows the character of this plan. The Director General for Manufacturing Industry Policy at the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said that through the implementation of the Second Basic Plan the government will take an early lead in the global eco-friendly ship market and create work for the domestic shipbuilding ecosystem. A policy of pursuing an artificial intelligence transition to secure a decisive technological lead for K-shipbuilding was presented as well. It means the phrase creating work was used as the language of industrial policy.
From the position of small and mid-sized shipbuilders and equipment makers, design support falls under the items that lower the barrier to entry. Ships propelled by low-carbon fuels have a high level of design difficulty in fuel tanks and supply systems, so companies without their own design capability find it hard to win orders at all. Conversely, if demonstration and certification costs and the cost of modifying production facilities are left out of the support items, design support alone is unlikely to lead to orders. The breadth of the support items is the variable that determines the spread of the effect.
On the scale of conversion support, both the figures 889 and 900 appeared. There is no settled explanation of whether this is a rounded expression or a separate count. The starting point for the 2035 target year and the plan period were also not presented in an organized form.
The draft subordinate legislation is receiving comments during the advance notice period. How the recipients and requirements are written into the provisions will determine how far down in business size the volume of 889 vessels reaches. What needs to be checked in the time remaining before the special act takes effect is the wording of the provisions. The 889 vessels are a target, and the list of those who will share that target is written by the enforcement decree.
