South Korea has vowed to forge long-term partnership with South African companies with the view to unlock economic opportunities for them in Korea and other parts of the world.
South Korea has vowed to forge long-term partnership with South African companies with the view to unlock economic opportunities for them in Korea and other parts of the world.
This was a commitment made by Yoon Sang Jick - the Secretary-General of the Committee Bid for World Expo 2030 Busan, Korea. Yoon visited South Africa as a special presidential envoy, and was a former Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy.
Yoon made these commitments while addressing the South Africa - South Korea Resources & Energy Business Forum in Sandton. South Korea sent a delegation of more than 30 Korean companies including Samsung, SK, LG. In his main address, Yoon said since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1992, Korea and South Africa have strengthened bilateral cooperation in various fields.
Trade between the two countries had more than quadrupled from $800 million in 1993 to $3.6 billion in 2021, and South Africa has become Korea’s largest trading partner within Africa.
He said the purpose of the delegation on mineral investment to South Africa this time was to lay the foundation for a long-term partnership between Korea and South Africa starting from the field of mineral resource development.
“As you are well aware, the Korean secondary battery industry has an unrivalled position in the global market based on the world’s best technology and mass production capacity.
“In addition, domestic and overseas contracts already secured by Korean companies so far has amounted to about 450 billion US dollars, and the planned facility investment is 1160GWh more than twice the global market size(518GWh) in 2022.
And, when the US IRA and
EU battery regulations are fully implemented in the global market the status of Korean secondary battery companies will be further solidified in the global supply network,” Yoon said. He said as the production scale of Korean batteries grows, the stable procurement of critical minerals like lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite essential for battery production becomes even more important than ever.
“In this sense, Korea’s efforts to strengthen cooperation with African countries. In the field of mineral resources development is very important.
“Even though Korea is a late comer to Africa compared to other countries such as China and Japan, it is high time to start in earnest.
“What I would like to especially emphasise is that economic cooperation between Korea and
African countries should pursue a longterm win-win partnership, rather than short-term and beneficial assistance,” he said.
Korea was the poorest country that experienced Japanese colonial occupation for 36 years from 1910 to 1945 and the ravages of war from 1950 to 1953.
Yoon said, however, Korea woke up from the ruins and today’s economic scale was 1.8trillion dollars in 2021, and the GDP per capita was 35 thousand dollars.
Korea’s GDP is twice that of Saudi Arabia, while GDP per capita is 1.5 times that of Saudi Arabia.
“In addition to economic scale, Korea is leading the global market in high-tech industries such as semiconductors, batteries, defence industries, shipbuilding, automobiles, displays, steel, chemical and artificial intelligence(AI).
Korea was also a soft power powerhouse that introduced unrivalled K-culture such as Squid Game and BTS to the world.
“I would like to develop a long term partnership that grows together throughout the value chain from resource development to smelting and battery production’, not just a simple procurement of critical minerals for secondary batteries,” he said.
In an exclusive interview, on the sidelines of the Business Forum, Yoon and some of his delegation, which included special advisers, gave a detailed plan of how they intend to work with South African companies and other African countries. The delegation which arrived in South Africa for the Business Forum on Monday, had initially travelled to Madagascar to forge relations. They would be leaving for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Tanzania and later to Namibia carrying the same message to uplift the economic abilities of African companies and to help create markets overseas especially in South Africa.
About his visit to South Africa, Yoon said they want to increase the value of minerals in African countries and to help local companies by assisting to smelt, process and manufacture their products.
“We want to assist South African companies to get the market and to create opportunities for them in countries where South Korea is having businesses.
“We are looking for long term partnerships. We will also share our experiences with South Africa and other African countries. We are ready to share our experience of growing from the ruins of the Korean War to the world’s 10th largest economy. I’d like to share our experience. If you want, let’s go together,” Yoon and his delegation emphasised.
He said in the last 70-years, his country did a lot of things to rebuild the economy and they now want to share it with the developing countries with the hope of building confidence that these developing countries would also improve and develop successful stories. This is not the first time that South Korea formed “working partnerships with African countries, “Yoon remembered. He said his country managed to produce two kinds of highly productive Rice in Senegal known as ISRIZ. According to him, most of the Senegalese population were now consuming the rice.
He said their success story in Senegal, was part of Korea-Africa
Food & Agriculture Cooperative Initiative(KAFACI) as an intergovernmental and multilateral cooperation body aiming to improve food production, achieve sustainable agriculture and enhance extension services of African countries through knowledge and information sharing on agricultural technologies.
In July 2010, KAFACI was officially inaugurated in Seoul, Korea, with participation of government representatives from 17 member countries: Angola, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, DRC, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Morocco, Nigeria, Sudan, Tunisia, Zimbabwe.
He said other countries such as Comoros, Rwanda and Zambia joined the initiative later. The delegation also said that the Rural Development Administration had also cooperated with 12 member countries in Latin America through KoLFAC (KoreaLatin America Food & Agriculture Cooperation Initiative).
The Korean delegation emphasised that in Africa, they are bringing their local rice seeds, testing and developing types of seeds which would adapt to the local climate to allow African countries to produce their own rice.
According to Yoon and his delegation, all these efforts were aimed at improving the living conditions of people in their respective countries.
The delegation also invited people in African countries to consider working opportunities in
South Korea. In his own words, Yoon said:
“About 20-years ago, we introduced the
Employment Permit System (EPS), in which foreign nationals were allowed to come and work in South Korea. We have a lot of industries and we would like people to come and work in our country.
“Assuming that foreign workers come to Korea and work, we have legislation in the country which allows workers to be paid $9 an hour, same rate that local Koreans are paid. If an employer violates that law, he or she gets punished. So the rights of workers are protected in our country.
“At the moment, most of the people who take up those working opportunities are mostly people who come from East Asian communities. We upskill them and later when they return to their respective countries, these people are able to form partnerships,” Yoon said.
He said now they want to attract the labour force from South Africa and other African countries. He appealed to local communities to consider work opportunities. As South Korea is expecting to be announced as the
host for World Expo 2030 in November, Yoon reiterated that his country would continue to support developing countries even post the World Expo.
In their booklet, they said the reason they launched the Busan Initiative was to bring nations together under the World Expo values of openness and shared progress, so that they could find new solutions to challenges.
“The Busan Initiative will take Korea’s international cooperation further, sparking global transformation in climate change, digital innovation, education, health and food security. Korea will share its experience growing from a war-torn nation to a global leading economy.
We’ll advance cooperation through high-tech tools and training allowing countries to create their own transformation stories.
All these were reiterated several times during the exclusive interview with the Korean delegation.