S.Korea & UAE sign nuclear power agreement

South Korea & The UAE

The South Korean government has taken a number of recent steps to strengthen ties with the United Arab Emirates as they approach the 30th anniversary of their relationship next year.

The two have signed an enhanced cooperation agreement as well as a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to cooperate in nuclear power and renewable energy sectors, a statement from the South Korean presidential Blue House said.

The announcement was made as South Korean President Lee Myung-bak visited the UAE and a South Korean consortium won a US$20 billion deal from the UAE to build four nuclear reactors.

In a statement President Lee said: "To celebrating the 30-year relation anniversary, both countries have made efforts to expand the bilateral cooperation to overall economic areas and establish (a) long-term, companion cooperating relationship.

The need to diversify

"They both agreed to build cooperating systems to make actual tie-ups in (areas of co-interest), and made an agreement on nuclear power, renewable energies and other major cooperating areas."

The UAE is the world's third-largest oil exporter but a need to diversify has been stressed by authorities. The Gulf state plans to build a number of nuclear reactors to meet an expected need for an additional 40,000 megawatts of power, while the consortium from South Korea, the world's fifth-largest oil importer, will build four nuclear reactors in the UAE to be jointly run.

Meanwhile, South Korea's GS Engineering and Construction said Tuesday it has signed contracts worth 3.63 billion dollars to expand oil refinery facilities in the United Arab Emirates.

The order is the biggest-ever won by a single South Korean company for plant construction.

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Daniel Jones

Daniel is a Politics and Philosophy graduate from Cardiff University where he also worked as a section editor on the award winning student newspaper. After university he joined an IT support company where he was a B2B online writer. He loves anything to do with sport and joined GDS in July 2009.

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