SOUTH Korea's Port of Incheon struggling to keep up with its big brother Busan, but trails behind by 16.37 million TEU in annual throughput.

It is not even ranked among the world's top 50 container ports, whereas Busan glories in fifth place while Incheon grows 11.4 per cent this year. 

Speaking at the Incheon Port Authority's 10th anniversary celebrations, CEO Yoo Chang Keun said the port would position itself as the logistics hub of the pan-Yellow Sea area by enabling speedy access to the South Korean hinterland, reported IHS Maritime 360.

The Golden Harbour development will comprise a harbour hinterland complex, shopping mall, hotel, water park, marina, and condominium. Construction on the 1.3-million square metre site is slated to begin at year-end.

"As Incheon port's service network becomes increasingly more dense and wider, we have crossed the two million mark in terms of the annual number of 20-foot containers handled," said Mr Yoo. 

"IPA will continuously work at improving itself towards the next 10 years," he said.

Incheon port has already taken the first steps towards its ambitious growth targets by expanding capacity to accommodate ultra-large container ships. 

Phase one of the redevelopment - Incheon New Port - will add six berths along 1.6 kilometres of quay to accommodate vessels of up to 10,000 TEU. 

Hanjin Shipping will operate Terminal A to open in early 2016, while Sun Kwang Newport Container Terminal is in charge of Terminal B, which opened on June 1. Each terminal has a quay length of 800 metres.

The longer-term goal is to dredge to 16 metres to enable 15,000 TEU ships to call.