UAE and South Korean firms to reap rich harvest

Seoul: The official visit of His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to Korea today will contribute to the further enhancement and development of future-oriented partnership between UAE and South Korea.

Since the formation of official diplomatic relations between the UAE and South Korea on June 19, 1980, the two countries have maintained close ties of cooperation and friendship.

The volume of bilateral trade between the two countries, too, has grown continuously on a steady basis and has developed rapidly, especially during the past few years.

Shaikh Mohammad is the highest ranking UAE leader ever to visit Korea following Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces General Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan's trip in June last year.

Economic ties

There have recently been close exchanges between the leaders of the two countries against the backdrop of President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan's initiative in enriching and widening cooperation between the two countries through his meetings with Korean President Roh Moo-Hyon and other ranking Korean officials including Prime Minister Han Duk-soo.

Shaikh Khalifa met with South Korean president Roh Moo-Hyun in Abu Dhabi in December last year to discuss ways of promoting bilateral economic ties, especially in the fields of energy and construction.

On the occasion of his official visit, Roh aimed to secure cooperation for "energy security" with the UAE, the world's fifth largest petroleum producing country with 97.8 billion barrels of petroleum and 6.06 trillion cubic meters of gas in reserve.

South Korea is eyeing various development plans, such as large-scale construction projects, as the UAE prepares for its "post-oil money" era based on the enormous money it has garnered from petro-leum-related businesses in the past decades.

While the UAE has been pushing for the construction of a palm tree-shaped artificial island worth $30 billion in Dubai, some South Korean firms are taking part in bids for related development projects worth some $8 billion.

Roh also discussed so-called "hub-to-hub" cooperation between the two countries with their aims of being hub countries in northeast Asia and in the Gulf, respectively, and cooperation in the defence industry.

The UAE has emerged as the biggest overseas market for Korean construction companies in the first three months of this year. Korean builders' orders from the UAE stood at $2.93 billion, or 32 per cent of their total first-quarter overseas orders worth $9.15 billion, according to South Korean construction ministry.

Korea is the UAE's second largest Asian trade partner after Japan. Most of the major Korean companies such as Hyundai, Daewoo, Samsung and LG have branches and agents in the UAE.