"South Korea opens new international airport"

Tuesday, April 2, 2002

South Korea opens new international airport
Agence France Presse


SEOUL, (AFP) - South Korea on Tuesday opened a new international airport
in the eastern city of Yangyang that it hopes will eventually be used
for traffic to rival North Korea.

After Incheon airport near Seoul, Yangyang, which cost about 270 million
dollars, is the second international airport to be opened in South Korea
in barely a year.

"Yangyang will become a hub for flights between the two Koreas as well
as a symbol of Korea's advance in the world alongside Incheon," Prime
Minister Lee Han-Dong said in a speech at the opening ceremony.

The authorities would like Yangyang to be used to increase traffic to
the North Korean resort of Mount Kumgang, a tourism project pushed by
the Seoul government as part of efforts to reconcile with the North
despite losing hundreds of millions of dollars in its four years of
operation.

Yangyang is in between the east coast ports of Sokcho and Gangneung
where the local airports will lose many of their flights. The
authorities hope to start flights from the new airport to China, Japan
and Southeast Asia.


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