Hong Kong/Seoul
Act Daily News
—
South Korea’s chief is capping off a whirlwind week, after securing tens of billions of {dollars} in funding from the Middle East and vowing to have his nation play a extra essential function in revitalizing worldwide provide chains.
On Monday, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol introduced that the United Arab Emirates had pledged a staggering $30 billion in funding within the Asian nation.
The news got here after the leaders of the 2 nations held talks in Abu Dhabi on Sunday, in a landmark journey that marked the first-ever state go to to the UAE by a South Korean president, in line with an announcement from Yoon’s workplace.
The funding goals to extend cooperation within the fields of nuclear, hydrogen and photo voltaic vitality, in addition to protection, together with an settlement to kind a “special strategic partnership” on the highest degree, the assertion stated.
Yoon was joined within the area by a delegation of Korean tycoons, together with the billionaire leaders of Samsung, Hyundai Motors
(HYMTF) and SK Group. In complete, representatives from roughly 100 South Korean firms traveled with the president, in line with his workplace.
During the four-day go to, two dozen agreements price $6.1 billion overlaying nuclear energy, protection and inexperienced vitality had been signed by companies from the 2 sides, in line with the South Korean authorities.
Some South Korean companies additionally agreed to construct farms for tomatoes and strawberries within the UAE, a rustic that depends closely on imports of agricultural merchandise.
The flurry of offers got here simply days earlier than Yoon addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the place he mentioned the significance of repairing international provide chains.
“The most urgent task of our time is to strengthen the supply chain’s resilience based on reciprocal solidarity,” he stated in a speech Thursday, noting latest disruptions within the provides of meals, vitality, laptop chips, vaccines and prescribed drugs throughout the globe.
“The pandemic, geopolitical conflicts, the rivalry for technological hegemony, and the weakening multilateral trade system have led to the fragmentation of the global supply chain, causing it to reshape,” Yoon continued, including that the conflict in Ukraine had exacerbated the state of affairs.
The president stated the difficulty had led to a “trend of bloc-forming among countries,” with worldwide cooperation “increasingly regarded as a package deal.”
“Building up walls and intensifying protectionism cannot be the right answer,” Yoon added.
Going ahead, South Korea “will be a key partner in the global supply chain,” utilizing its experience in sectors akin to semiconductors and steel-making to assist stabilize provide chains, he pledged. “We will align and cooperate with mutually trusted countries.”