A 100-year-old proposal to build an underwater tunnel connecting South Korea to Japan might actually see the light of day and could start being built in the next few years.
The proposed "Japan-Korea Undersea Tunnel" will be a motor tunnel conveying vehicles, freight and people between the southern Korean city of Busan (the second largest) and Japan's southern island of Kyushu. At its shortest, the tunnel will span 128 kilometers while a longer route would be 200 kilometers long. Some 20,000 people travel between both countries every day.
The tunnel might generate $2 billion in annual operating profits for freight alone, said Toshiyasu Noda, a professor in the department of law at Seinan Gakuin University in Fukuoka. Toll revenue will add a further $3.7 billion in annual earnings, said Noda.
His estimates include cargo traffic from South Korea, Russia, and China. He also projects more than 32 million tons of cargo will pass through the tunnel every year. His study also assumes construction to start in 2020 with the tunnel opening by 2030
In 2014, a South Korean government agency estimated the tunnel could generate $53 billion in economic benefits and create about 45,000 jobs.
The tunnel's construction cost is estimated at more than $90 billion. Of this total, about $36 billion will come from a joint investment fund between South Korea and Tokyo. The balance will be borrowed from private sector lenders.
The tunnel might lead to opening new "tourist routes, railroads, and airports," said Park Hyun-sun, a professor at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.
The tunnel has been discussed intermittently for a century but became a serious consideration in 2008, when 10 Japanese lawmakers established a committee to pursue the project. This was followed by a study group from both countries in early 2009 that agreed to form a committee for the creation of specific construction plans.
The earliest recorded discussion about a tunnel connecting Korea to Japan was made in 1917 by the Imperial Japanese Army. Korea, then a single nation, was then a colony of the Imperial Japanese Empire.
