Korea and Saudi Arabia have agreed to expand cooperation in the biotech, gaming, and automotive sectors while implementing existing economic cooperation tasks in infrastructure.
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) announced the agreement at the Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul, during the fourth meeting of the Korea-Saudi Vision 2030 Committee on Oct. 13. On hand were senior officials from 11 key ministries of both countries, including Korean Trade Minister Choi Byeong-kyu and Saudi Arabian Minister of Investment Khalid Al-Falih.
The meeting was held in one year and nine months since the third meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in January 2022. At the meeting, the two countries reviewed the implementation status of 39 existing cooperation projects and agreed to pursue a total of 56 cooperation projects including 17 newly developed ones in earnest.
The projects newly developed by the two countries cover areas such as the biotech and gaming industries, mobile payment solutions, and automobile production.
New urban development and construction machinery cooperation, smart cities, and new building methods such as modular construction will also be promoted.
The two countries also confirmed smooth progress in work and projects agreed upon in a meeting between Korean President Yoon and Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Muhammad bin Salman, including 26 contracts and memorandums of understanding (MOUs) signed during the prince’s visit to Korea in November 2022.
The value of the projects agreed upon by the two governments, companies, and organizations during Crown Prince bin Salman’s visit is estimated to be US$30 billion.
Major projects include S-OIL’s Shaheen Project, a petrochemical project in Ulsan, Korea worth about 9.3 trillion won (US$6.9 billion) and projects related to Saudi Arabia’s ambitious Neom City project. The largest shareholder of S-OIL is state-run Saudi Arabian company Aramco.
Korea and Saudi Arabia agreed to cooperate on the success of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, an economic and social reform program, at their summit meeting in 2016, and established the Vision 2030 Committee the following year as a ministerial cooperation channel to discuss specific cooperation measures.
The committee manages the implementation of promising joint projects between both countries’ governments, organizations, and companies, focusing on five sectors -- manufacturing and energy, smart infrastructure, capacity building, healthcare and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and investment.
Neom City is a project to build a 26,500-square-kilometer low-carbon smart city 44 times the size of Seoul in a desert and mountainous area adjacent to the Red Sea.
The meeting is said to have included practical work on the project too, as the Korean Presidential Office said on Oct. 3 that there will be a schedule to finalize the Saudi project later in October.
Korean business leaders are expected to visit the Middle East kingdom later this month along with Korean political figures and government officials to compete to land orders for Neom City.