South Korea plans to become one of the world’s top four weapons suppliers, President Yoon Suk Yeol said Wednesday as he addressed reporters in a speech marking his first 100 days in office.
“By entering the world’s top four defense exporters after the United States, Russia and France, the (South Korean) defense industry will become a strategic industrialization and a defense powerhouse,” Yoon said at the presidential office.
In 2021, South Korea ranked 10th in the world in arms transfers, according to the authoritative Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
With arms exports valued at $566 million, according to SIPRI’s unique trend-indicator value monitoring system, Seoul was well behind last year’s No. 4 exporter, Italy, which sold arms worth $1.7 billion.
For comparison, US arms transfers were calculated to be $10.6 billion.
South Korea has already taken steps to achieve its top four ambitions.
Late last month, it signed its biggest-ever arms deal to supply Poland with almost 1,000 K2 tanks, more than 600 pieces of artillery and dozens of fighter jets.
A South Korean-made FA-50 multirole light fighter aircraft of the Philippine Air Force performs a fly-past during a ceremony prior to landing at the Clark Air Base in Angeles City on November 28, 2015.
And in February it inked a $1.7 billion deal with Egypt to supply it with K9 self-propelled howitzers and support vehicles.
Late last year, South Korea made another massive deal to supply Australia with K9s.
If South Korea meets Yoon’s goal, it will surpass not only Italy, but regional power China as well as Germany, Spain, Israel and the United Kingdom, according to the SIPRI rankings.
“I believe this is a very ambitious goal,” said Chun In-Bum, a retired South Korean general turned military analyst.
“South Korea and its arms industry have to do a lot of work,” he said.
Source; CNN