Presidential Chief of Staff Kang Hoon-sik will visit the UAE this week as a presidential envoy to sell the "K-defense industry." President Lee Jae-myung directly ordered the trip to carry out the national agenda of becoming one of the four major defense powers. Along with high-level talks between the two countries on purchasing weapons systems, a meeting with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Khaled bin Mohamed Al Nahyan is also planned.
An official at the presidential office said on the 10th, "I understand that Chief Kang will visit the UAE to cooperate in the defense industry." The UAE is a leading export destination for Korea's defense industry and in 2022 signed a contract with Korea to export the medium-range surface-to-air missile Cheongung-2 worth 4 trillion won. Ahead of the Dubai Airshow next week, the chief of staff will personally introduce the "Korean fighter jet KF-21" as part of a push to speed up defense cooperation.
This UAE visit came about a little over a month after President Lee appointed Chief Kang as "special envoy for strategic economic cooperation." At the time, Chief Kang visited Poland, Romania and Norway to deliver a presidential letter and discuss cooperation in security and the economy. As countries provide government-level financial support and industrial and startup cooperation in the global defense market, the plan is to build a "defense export control tower" within the presidential office to support exports. The total scale of defense product acquisitions being pursued with these countries is $56.2 billion (about 79 trillion won).
It is also notable that the decision on winning Poland's "Orca Project" is imminent. The project is a large-scale, 8 trillion won program for the Polish navy to introduce three new 3,000-ton submarines. HD Hyundai Heavy Industries and Hanwha Ocean are competing with corporations from France, Germany, Italy and Sweden. Recently, Minister of National Defense Ahn Gyu-baek publicly said there is "a chance of victory," underscoring the government's strong interest. The president's decision to dispatch a special envoy also took this timing into account.
At the end of last month, Crown Prince Khaled visited Gyeongju to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit and held a bilateral meeting with the president. At the meeting, the two countries discussed significantly strengthening cooperation in defense, the defense industry and energy. After visiting Poland and Romania as a defense envoy, Chief Kang also wrote on social media, "With European countries expanding their introduction of defense products due to the changing security environment, now is the right time for our defense companies to make a full-fledged entry into the European market and turn it into a new growth base," adding, "We will make every effort to support our companies so their entry into the defense market can produce tangible results."