Korea-Czech Summit
South Korean President Park Geun-hye met with Czech President Miloš Zeman in the Czech Republic on Dec. 2.
At the meeting, the Korea Electric Power Corporation and SP, a state-run power company of the republic, signed an MOU for mutual cooperation in the nuclear power industry. The Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Corporation concluded a consulting contract with SP as well for an EU certification regarding Korea’s nuclear power stations to be exported to Europe.
At present, the Czech government is planning to build nuclear power plants worth more than 10 trillion won(US$8 billion) in total in Temelín, Dukovany. Business models are to be fixed next year and open tenders are scheduled for 2019. Westinghouse Electric, Rosatom, Areva and many more are expected to join the competition.
The two Presidents signed a total of 18 MOUs during their meeting, which cover medical & healthcare, ICT, culture & entertainment, college-level exchange, machinery manufacturing and the like. The two countries are expected to be working together with each other to build more private hospitals, improve public hospitals, control diseases while cooperating in the fields of software, IoT, big data, etc. The Czech Republic is the home of a medical market worth 14 trillion won(US$12 billion) in size. It’s ICT market, which has a size of approximately three trillion won(US$2 billion), is showing a 5 percent annual growth these days.