Nampo, the gateway to Pyongyang, is the largest port on the western coast of North Korea, while the largest on the east coasts is Chongjin. Chongjin and Wonsan, both on the east coast, accommodate vessels coming mainly from Russia and Japan, while Nampo handles those sailing from Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe.

Nampo's fisheries base and elsewhere, home to all sorts of foreign exchange earning establishments, swarm with trading and foreign-exchange-earning personnel. With expensive goods like antiques transacted, the port also attracts merchants from across the country. When North Korean vessels return to Nampo after concluding trading voyages overseas, people come from around the nation to buy various contraband.

Relief goods from the outside world including South Korea are mostly shipped to Nampo, and institutions with clout like the military rush to the port to get relief food before others. All ports in the North are off limits to ordinary citizens. They are placed under surveillance by an array of agencies such as coast guards, the Port Security Command, the People's Security Ministry and State Security Agency.

"Despite strict controls, however, access to the port is not so difficult so long as you know someone working there," observes Kim Young-gil (alias), 34, a North Korean defector who as a People's Army member was once engaged in foreign exchange earning in Nampo.

All vessels entering Nampo have to pass the West Sea Floodgates - the largest structure in the North constructed in 1986 for the purpose of boosting the port's berthing capacity by elevating its water level. In winter, however, vessels encounter great difficulties in navigation because the Taedong River is frozen as the floodgates block inflowing currents. Consequently, foreign vessels are said to be reluctant to enter Nampo in winter for fear of possible damage to their ships.

Outdated facilities at the port, emerging as a transportation hub in parallel with the increasing inter-Korea business activities, cause lots of difficulties. Consequently higher transportation and storage costs constitute a major obstacle to such activities. According to an official at Kukyang Shipping Co., providing regular freight services between Inchon and Nampo, shipping charge per 20-feet container between the two ports is US$800, U$100-U$200 more expensive than that applied to shipping between Inchon and Dandong of China. Nampo charges about US$10,000 for harboring, three to four times that of South Korea, and charges are also not consistent.

The irregular operation of unloading at Nampo often renders it impossible to predict the length of time taken in port. Unloading is often interrupted during winter in particular because of poor power supply. A freighter that anchored at Nampo after departing from Inchon on November 29, the official said, had to stay seven days longer than expected due to delayed unloading caused by power failures.

Equipped with no cranes capable of unloading 40-feet containers, Nampo Port handles 20-feet containers only. Due to an insufficient stock of equipment parts in addition to obsolete stevedoring equipment such as container handlers, trailers, tractors and trailer chassis, freight unloading has to wait a long time when any of the parts break down.

Nampo has nine piers. Unloaded at numbers one and two are mainly grains and coal; mainly containers at eight and nine; while the remaining piers serve small vessels. The piers have a total length of 1,890m, and three 10,000-ton freighters and three 300,000-ton freighters can berth at the same time. Nampo has a stevedoring capacity of eight million tons, compared with 56 million tons at Inchon, accounting for 29% of goods North Korea trades with foreign countries.

(Kang Chol-hwan, nkch@chosun. )