Arab News, Thu, May 30, 2024 | Dhu al-Qadah 22, 1445
South Korea, UAE sign deal to slash import duties at leaders’ summit
Emirates:
South Korea and the UAE signed a trade pact on Wednesday to sharply cut import
duties at a summit of their leaders that pledged closer business and investment
ties.
Host South Korea welcomed the UAE’s President
Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan with a traditional honour guard and a
flypast of air force jets.
“The special bond between the two leaders serves
as an opportunity to deepen and advance the two countries’ special strategic
partnership,” the office of President Yoon Suk Yeol said in a statement.
The summit, which follows Yoon’s state visit last
year to Abu Dhabi, focused on energy and defense, as South Korea seeks to tap
the investment potential of the energy-rich Gulf state.
In its statement, Yoon’s office said the UAE
reaffirmed last year’s pledge of $30 billion in investment for South Korean
businesses, in areas from nuclear power and defense to hydrogen and solar
energy.
The two sides also signed an agreement to boost
investment flows into future-focused sectors in South Korea’s economy, it
added.
The Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. signed a letter of
intent for a South Korean company to build at least six LNG carriers valued at
about $1.5 billion, it said.
The industry ministers formally signed a
Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement agreed in October that will remove
all tariffs on South Korean arms exports when it is ratified, South Korea said.
The UAE will also drop import duty on automobiles
over the next decade, during which South Korea’s tariffs on crude oil imports
are to be removed.
The deal will eventually scrap tariffs on more
than 90 percent of the imports of both.
On Tuesday, Sheikh Mohammed met the leaders of
some of South Korea’s top conglomerates including Jay Y. Lee of Samsung
Electronics, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won and Kim Dong-kwan of Hanwha Group,
which has emerged as a major defense contractor.
No new arms deal was unveiled, but Yoon’s office
said both aim to boost long-term cooperation of their defense industries.
South Korea has signed a series of global defense
equipment contracts as part of its plans to become the world’s fourth-largest
defense exporter by 2027.
One such recent deal involves Poland, which seeks
to bolster its defense as a close neighbor of Ukraine, which is at war with
Russia.