The Saudi-Korean Business Forum has witnessed 13 investment agreements in areas of strategic interest such as clean energy and manufacturing, smart infrastructure and digitalisation, capacity building, SMEs, healthcare and life sciences.
Organised by the Ministry of Investment of Saudi Arabia (MISA), the forum was attended by Moon Sung Wook, Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy of the Republic of Korea, Chung Eui Yong, Minister of Foreign Affairs and high-ranking officials from the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
Inaugurated by Moon Jae In, President of the Republic of Korea, as part of his official visit to the Gulf kingdom, the forum culminated in several business-to-business, government-to-business and government-to-government agreements.
The forum comes as Saudi Arabia and South Korea’s bilateral trade has increased from $3.9 billion in 1980 to $25.5 billion in 2019.
Among the agreements, the Saudi Ministry of Investment signed an agreement with Samsung C&T to help it develop and localise industries related to construction technologies and green products and around investing in building and financing infrastructure projects.
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) also signed a deal with Korean firms POSCO and Samsung C&T to study and develop a green hydrogen production project in the kingdom for export purposes.
Saudi Aramco signed an agreement with Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) for a pre-feasibility study on blue ammonia and blue hydrogen for investment, production, logistics and sales, an agreement with POSCO regarding investment in blue ammonia and blue hydrogen and a basic terms agreement with Export-Import Bank of Korea for framework agreements that include a credit limit of up to $6 billion.
Saudi Aramco also signed a series of agreements with S-Oil around areas including research and development, blue hydrogen and technology development.
The Saudi Arabian Industrial Investments Company (Dussur), Saudi Aramco and Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction also agreed to establish a factory in iron molding and forging in Ras Al-Khair, with a production capacity of 83,000 tons annually.
Other deals saw Kumho Tire and Al-Sahm Al-Usud for Tires sign a technical partnership agreement to establish a factory for tyre production. The factory’s production capacity will reach 15 million tyres annually, and production is expected to start in the third quarter of 2023.
Coinciding with the business forum was the fourth ministerial meeting of the Saudi-Korean Vision 2030 Committee, formed to deepen and widen policy and economic ties between the two countries.
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