After upgrading their bilateral relationship to the level of "private strategic partnership" supported by the "brother" military unit, the visit of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, to South Korea in 2018, set a milestone in the fortieth march A year of relations between the two countries. According to the Emirates News Agency (WAM), the two sides held fruitful talks, and signed agreements covering a range of sectors, including investment and economy, trade and education, culture and technology and science, renewable energy and infrastructure.
Regardless of the development of relations between the two countries, which are characterized by a unique insight into the foreign policy making of countries, this flourishing relationship between the two sides is based on two factors that helped achieve such a high level of mutual trust in a relatively short period of time.
Motivation
The nuclear agreement in 2009 and the accompanying guarantees provided a catalyst for this relationship, but this convergence was also driven by the needs and priorities of the defense sectors of the two countries, helped by the similarities in their economic development models.
With the Emirates embarking on adopting an ambitious national defense industrialization plan through which the UAE becomes a regional arms exporting country, Abu Dhabi has been looking not only for diversifying its defense partnerships, but also finding reliable partners, providing them with modern technology, and through them they can transfer know-how with such Technologies. While the UAE seeks to expand its commercial and strategic activities with its immediate neighborhood, and also with the Horn of Africa, not to mention its current participation in supporting legitimacy in Yemen, it is determined to gain a degree of self-sufficiency in meeting its defense needs through strategic exchanges and partnerships. Moreover, this endeavor has become extremely urgent due to the increasing external pressure regarding arms sales.
To meet this need, South Korea comes as a natural choice, and Seoul, as the official politician, aspires to become a major source of weapons as stipulated in the Defense Reform Plan 2020.
Defense sector
Accordingly, and regardless of who sits in the Blue House, the defense sector is the most recent item of economic development, which comes at the forefront of South Korean exports, and which the government must support in order to expand its share in foreign markets, and thus contribute to the country's economic growth, and this It means that defense industries are now a tool for both national security and economic development, and therefore the government must adopt a more pragmatic approach to their internationalization. South Korea's strong presence and active participation in the recent IDEX defense exhibition in Abu Dhabi is evidence of this new initiative.
In addition, South Korea adopted, according to international standards, a liberal stance on foreign direct investment in its defense industrial sector, and that is to reduce red tape and entry barriers, and therefore foreign investors have an almost free hand in choosing their preferred sectors, or weapons systems To invest in it. This may be of great benefit to the UAE and its major investment funds, such as Mubadala. Add to this the policy of transferring comfortable knowledge in Seoul as part of its marketing strategy, as it tries to use its defense relations with the UAE, as a model for partnership with other Arab countries, supported by its close relations with the United States, and for this it became clear why was the first stop in the path of His Highness Sheikh’s visit Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Memorial Tower, was followed by a visit to the Samsung Semiconductor Research Center.
In 2017, the volume of trade exchange between the UAE and South Korea reached 14 billion dollars, of which six billion dollars is the value of Korea's exports to the UAE, and eight billion dollars is its imports from the UAE.
exports
The main UAE exports to the Korean Republic include crude oil, petroleum products, aluminum and liquefied petroleum gas, while the main Korean exports to the UAE include modern electronic products, cars, equipment and oil installations, and due to the expansion of joint projects, the number of Korean visitors and residents in the UAE has increased, as the number of Koreans residing There are 15,000 people in the country, while the number of Korean companies operating in the UAE has reached 200 operating companies, and thanks to direct lines from Abu Dhabi and Dubai to Seoul, economic, trade and tourism relations between the two countries have witnessed a great leap.
Annual consultation system
With the aim of strengthening the relationship between the two countries, an annual consultation system has been established between the two countries, where they hold meetings of the Joint Economic Committee at a ministerial level, and review meetings at the level of Foreign Ministry agents, thus the two countries have established the institutional framework for expanding the scope of cooperation in the future, with the launch of a number of high-level consultations In nuclear energy, information and communications technology, agriculture and others.
As for the volume of trade exchange, it reached about $ 14 billion, and the UAE is the commercial partner, and it is the number 20 on the list of major countries in the trade partnership.
200,000 South Koreans visit the UAE annually, and in return, 11,427 Emirati citizens visited Korea in 2018, an increase of 4% over the previous year, and 4997 Emiratis visited Korea between January and May 2019, an increase of 16% compared to the same period in 2018.
The number of Koreans residing in the country is 15,000, while the number of Korean companies is 200.
The nuclear agreement in 2009 and the accompanying guarantees provided a catalyst for this relationship, but this convergence was also driven by the needs and priorities of the defense sectors of the two countries, helped by the similarities in their economic development models.
Abdullah Al-Nuaimi: Korean companies play an important role in development projects
Al-Naimi: Emirates is the gateway to Korean companies. Archive
In a dialogue with the Korean “Arirang” channel, within the “diplomatic program”, on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the establishment of relations between the two countries, the UAE’s ambassador to the Republic of South Korea, Abdullah Saif Al-Nuaimi, touched on a set of important political and economic aspects in the relations between the two countries, From what was stated in the interview:
• In the seventies and eighties of the last century, Korean workers were working abroad, and the UAE was one of the attractive places for this employment. Tell us about how the economic relations between the two countries are going?
- In the seventies there was an oil boom and a huge return on oil revenue, and the emirate was seeking to establish its infrastructure such as roads and bridges, and all infrastructure projects, and Korean companies played a role in this regard, and some Korean companies were specialized in performing this work. And, if you visit the Korea Museum of Contemporary Art, you will find some evidence about the Korean workers who came at that time to the Middle East in general.
Has the situation changed? I mean, are there still sites for Korean companies?
If we take into account the development that occurred, we will find that there is a big difference between the seventies and what we are now, of course there is a lot of development regarding Korean companies, and although there are no large Korean companies at that time, they still play an important role in development, but we We see that the relationship with these companies has developed, as a peaceful nuclear power plant is being established by an alliance of Korean companies, which indicates the important role played by Korean companies. Regarding oil and gas, there are Korean companies operating in the field of oil and gas in the UAE. A few months ago, the first oil shipment produced by a Korean oil company was transferred. So there is a lot of progress and development in the relations between Korean companies and activities in the Middle East, especially the UAE, and the UAE is considered a gateway to most Korean companies in the Middle East. There is also the Barakah project, the first project that Korea is adopting outside its territory, and it is our first project, and that is why we both gained experience from this project.
• I liked your phrase that the UAE is a gateway to Korean companies in the Middle East, and in a helpful summary, in the 1970s and 1980s there were Korean construction workers, and now the modern nuclear plant and oil industry. So relations have evolved into what are called strategic partnerships. When the Korean president visited the UAE in 2018, how do you describe this relationship to us?
As I said before, our relationship started in 1971 and we have recorded a lot of progress since then. 2009 The relationship was upgraded to a strategic partnership at the time. We signed the contract with the Korean companies alliance to establish a peaceful nuclear power plant, and this also helped at that time to upgrade relations during 2018 during the visit of Korean President Moon Ji-in to the country, and the two leaders decided to upgrade this relationship to special strategic partnership relations, and I believe that the United Arab Emirates It is the only country in the Middle East to have such a relationship with Korea.