A 3D inspection would cut the needed time to one-tenth of what is required now by completing the task in a single view. The 2D devices being used currently need separate horizontal and vertical checks.

When put into full operation in March, inspection of the annual 640,000 twenty-foot equivalent units of exports container cargo to the United States would be shortened by some 90,000 hours with a manpower cost reduction of an estimated 580 million won, the ministry said.

South Korea currently owns 14 foreign-made cargo inspection devices. The workload is expected to increase from the US making full pre-inspection mandatory at exporting nations on all cargo heading to the country.

The ministry said expedited inspection would make South Korean ports attractive to foreign container ships while the 3D technology can become a new export item. The global market for such devices stood at $850 million as of 2015, with a 12 percent expansion every year. By 2019, the market will grow to $1.5 billion, the ministry said.

"We will be installing the inspection machines on-site after seven months of functional tests and verifications," Eom Ki-doo, head of the ministry's shipping and logistics bureau, said. "We will make efforts to gain market competitiveness and make the machines a key export product." (Yonhap)