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Truck drivers are on strike for the 8th day as of today (14th).
Beyond the logistical and transport disruptions, such as the shutdown of some factories in POSCO's Pohang Works, major production facilities are now starting to be paralyzed.
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said that during the six days of the strike, 1.6 trillion won was lost.
This is Reporter Jung Joon-ho.
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Pohang Works in Pohang, Gyeongsangbuk-do.
Large bundles of coils are piled up all over the road inside the steelworks.
The warehouse was full as the goods were blocked due to the freighter strike, and they were put out on the road.
Some factories stopped production from yesterday when there was no place to store them anymore.
[POSCO official: If the situation continues for a long time, it may lead to a shutdown of the blast furnace operation...
.]
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) who have to receive products from POSCO are more troubled.
[Posco customer company official: We can't even produce what we ordered, so we're worried about claims about delivery.
Almost all hands and feet are tied...
.]
The same goes for the automotive industry.
About 380 finished vehicles that were supposed to be in the export port were stranded in a parking lot near the factory.
As a result of the Ministry of Industry's investigation, it was estimated that about 1.6 trillion won in damages occurred during the six days of the strike in major industries such as automobiles, steel, petrochemicals, and cement.
In the case of steel products, 450,000 tons of shipments were disrupted, resulting in nearly 700 billion won in damage.
In particular, cement shipments have decreased by more than 90% compared to usual, and the number of construction sites stopping is increasing.
The longer the logistical disruption, the more the damage will inevitably snowball, and a prompt and amicable agreement is urgently needed.