Hong Kong/Seoul
CNN
—
South Korea’s chief is capping off a whirlwind week, after securing tens of billions of {dollars} in funding from the Center 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 information 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 accordance with a press release 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 “particular strategic partnership” on the highest stage, 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 corporations traveled with the president, in accordance with his workplace.
In the course of the four-day go to, two dozen agreements price $6.1 billion masking nuclear energy, protection and inexperienced vitality have been signed by companies from the 2 sides, in accordance with the South Korean authorities.
Some South Korean corporations 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 Financial Discussion board in Davos, Switzerland, the place he mentioned the significance of repairing international provide chains.
“Essentially the most pressing process of our time is to strengthen the provision chain’s resilience primarily based on reciprocal solidarity,” he stated in a speech Thursday, noting current 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 commerce system have led to the fragmentation of the worldwide provide chain, inflicting it to reshape,” Yoon continued, including that the warfare in Ukraine had exacerbated the state of affairs.
The president stated the difficulty had led to a “development of bloc-forming amongst international locations,” with worldwide cooperation “more and more thought to be a bundle deal.”
“Increase partitions and intensifying protectionism can’t be the proper reply,” Yoon added.
Going ahead, South Korea “will likely be a key companion within the international provide chain,” utilizing its experience in sectors equivalent to semiconductors and steel-making to assist stabilize provide chains, he pledged. “We’ll align and cooperate with mutually trusted international locations.”