Page 16 - SOFEX 2022 - Day 1 | DAILY NEWS

While the K9 and FA-/T-50 are some of
KOREA DEFENSE INDUSTRY South Korea’s most popular export plat-
forms, the country’s list of export items is
EYES MORE EXPORT DEALS much broader, from warships, submarines
and training aircraft to an array of weapon,
communication and electronic warfare
systems, as South Korea has gradually
The Korea Defense Industry Association defense exporter over that time-frame. moved from exporting components and
(KDIA), the organisation representing A recently released report by the Export- munitions to delivering complete platforms
Korea’s defense industry, is attending the Import Bank of Korea — one of several and systems.
show with hopes of furthering the global loan providers for South Korea’s Defense
push to grow its domestic defense indus- Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) With the value of its exports expected
tries, and in strengthening alliances with international customers — said defense to exceed that of China and Germany by
Middle East and North African (MENA) ser- exports increased from around US$3 bil- the end of 2022, South Korea is poised
vices and companies. lion in 2020 to US$7 billion in 2021 and are to be among the world’s four largest
expected to reach US$10 billion this year. defense-exporting countries, according to
Not only in MENA region, South Korea a government research institute.
is targeting defense exports in every The recent blitz in multimillion- and multibil-
geographical market, with the biggest lion-dollar arms sale deals that South Korea South Korea is making a huge impact in
successes to date coming in developing has clinched so far include K9 self-pro- the defense market in the Middle East. LIG
markets. pelled howitzers to Australia, India, and Nex1, Hanwha Defense Co. and Hanwha
Egypt; medium-range surface-to-air missile Systems Co. agreed with the United Arab
The country exported about US$7 billion systems to the United Arab Emirates; and Emirates (UAE) Tawazun Technology and
of military equipment in 2021, far exceed- anti-air defense systems to Saudi Arabia. Innovation (TTI) to supply their mid-range
ing an earlier forecast of US$5 billion. The surface-to-air missile (M-SAM) system to
overseas sales are expected to top US$10 South Korea has also angled to sell its the Middle East country.
billion this year with hopes for more major high-end fighter jet, the KF-21, to Indonesia,
supply contracts with the Middle East, Malaysia, Thailand, Iraq, Qatar, Senegal, The size of the deal was known to be at
Europe and Australia. and Peru. US$3.5 billion, the largest single arms con-
tract ever for South Korea. LIG Nex1 and
According to data provided by the The arms deal with Poland, which includes Hanwha System said they had secured a
Stockholm International Peace Research 48 FA-50 light combat aircraft, 1,000 K2 2.6 trillion won (US$2.2 billion) contract and
Institute (SIPRI), South Korea only Black Panther tanks, and 672 additional K9 a 1.3 trillion won deal related to the export
accounted for about 1 per cent of global Thunder self-propelled howitzers (SPHs), of the weapon, known as Cheongung II in
defense exports between 2012 and 2016, is by far the largest ever for South Korea’s Korean.
but that figure shot up to 2.8 per cent in growing defense industry, providing further
the following five-year period through 2021 evidence that Seoul’s efforts to promote Kang Eun-ho, the Minister of DAPA, said
thanks to a 177 per cent increase in sales. and facilitate the sale of the country’s other countries in the MENA region were
That made Seoul the world’s eight-largest defense products are paying off. also in talks for Cheongung II.
16 | NOVEMBER-01-2022 WWW.GBP.COM.SG/DAILY NEWS