The South Korean government pledged to step in to resolve worldwide shipping havoc in the aftermath of Hanjin Shipping’s court receivership.

After convening an emergency meeting on Sunday, Joo Hyung-hwan, the Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) said the government will do whatever to normalize cargo unloading and have shipments delivered on time as well as arranging special financing.

Over 40 vessels of Hanjin Shipping have been stranded at sea after they had been denied of calls and cargo unloading due to overdue payments to the ports after the company was placed under court receivership.

A Seoul bankruptcy court has issued requests for injunction to port jurisdictions around the world to protect the cargoes and asked the Korean state and creditors for debtor-in-possession to help the shipper make immediate payments to keep the business running.

Hanjin Group pledged to come up with immediate funding of 100 billion won ($90.4 million). Its flagship company Korean Air on Saturday agreed to fund 60 billion won backed by the shipper’s port terminal in Long Beach, California. The other 40 billion won would come from the pocket of the group chairman. But whether the funding from Korean Air can be possible remains uncertain as making the Long Beach terminal collateral requires approvals from multiple lenders that own the other half of the stake.

In a life-supporting move, a bankruptcy court in New Jersey accepted Hanjin Shipping’s petition for stay order that would protect Hanjin Shipping cargoes and assets from creditors in the United States and allow unloading of shipments in U.S. ports.

The trade ministry said it will place task force to address shipping problems by items and regions.

“We will keep the customers of Hanjin Shipping closely informed about the shipping status,” Joo said.

A total of 13 replacement carriers have been put in the U.S. and European routes of Hanjin Shipping. Another 11 have been replaced in Southeast Asian routes.

By Ko Jae-man and Seo Dong-cheol

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