South Korea secures $30 billion UAE investment decision and vows to support shore up supply chains at WEF

Hong Kong/Seoul
CNN
 — 

South Korea’s leader is capping off a whirlwind 7 days, right after securing tens of billions of pounds in financial commitment from the Middle East and vowing to have his region participate in a extra essential purpose in revitalizing international source chains.

On Monday, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol announced that the United Arab Emirates had pledged a staggering $30 billion in investment decision in the Asian region.

The information came soon after the leaders of the two nations held talks in Abu Dhabi on Sunday, in a landmark excursion that marked the initial-at any time state go to to the UAE by a South Korean president, according to a assertion from Yoon’s workplace.

The financial commitment aims to maximize cooperation in the fields of nuclear, hydrogen and solar energy, as very well as defense, along with an agreement to variety a “special strategic partnership” at the highest stage, the assertion mentioned.

Yoon was joined in the region by a delegation of Korean tycoons, like the billionaire leaders of Samsung, Hyundai Motors

(HYMTF) and SK Group. In whole, reps from somewhere around 100 South Korean companies traveled with the president, according to his business.

In the course of the 4-day check out, two dozen agreements truly worth $6.1 billion masking nuclear electrical power, defense and green energy ended up signed by firms from the two sides, according to the South Korean federal government.

Some South Korean corporations also agreed to make farms for tomatoes and strawberries in the UAE, a state that relies greatly on imports of agricultural products.

The flurry of deals arrived just days ahead of Yoon addressed the Earth Financial Discussion board in Davos, Switzerland, the place he discussed the importance of restoring world wide supply chains.

“The most urgent activity of our time is to strengthen the source chain’s resilience primarily based on reciprocal solidarity,” he reported in a speech Thursday, noting latest disruptions in the provides of foods, vitality, personal computer chips, vaccines and pharmaceuticals across the world.

“The pandemic, geopolitical conflicts, the rivalry for technological hegemony, and the weakening multilateral trade process have led to the fragmentation of the world wide supply chain, leading to it to reshape,” Yoon continued, adding that the war in Ukraine experienced exacerbated the predicament.

The president stated the problem had led to a “trend of bloc-forming among nations,” with global cooperation “increasingly regarded as a bundle deal.”

“Building up walls and intensifying protectionism are not able to be the correct reply,” Yoon included.

Heading forward, South Korea “will be a crucial associate in the world-wide provide chain,” working with its experience in sectors these as semiconductors and steel-producing to enable stabilize provide chains, he pledged. “We will align and cooperate with mutually dependable nations.”