By Dominic Welling
Incheon Airport has announced plans to build a 16,600sqm healthcare logistics centre in its free trade zone by 2012.
The Korean airport has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the logistics giant DHL and the commercial property investment and management company, KORAMCO Reits & Trust, to get the project underway.
The healthcare logistics centre, which will be dedicated to pharmaceuticals and medical systems, will be built as a "Build-To-Suit" project to incorporate customer requirements.
KORAMCO will be in charge of the design phase and construction, while DHL will be in charge of delivering efficient logistic services to customers.
The pharmaceutical market in Korea is currently one of the top seven emerging pharmaceutical markets in the world and is growing at a rate of more than 12% per year on average.
However, according to Incheon, so far there is no supporting facility to cope with such growth, and as a result the airport hopes to become a pharmaceutical logistics hub that offers the appropriate infrastructure and facilities aligned to market needs.
Incheon added that, as more than 70% of pharmaceuticals require a cold-chain logistics chain, the new healthcare logistics centre will turn out to be a magnet and will attract many high-value pharmaceutical customers to the airport.
