Park arrives in UAE for talks with Abu Dhabi crown prince

By Kim Kwang-tae

ABU DHABI, March 5 (Yonhap) -- South Korean President Park Geun-hye has arrived in the United Arab Emirates in the second visit in less than a year, a move that underscored Seoul's commitment to further deepening cooperation with the wealthy Gulf state.

Park is set to meet with the Abu Dhabi crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, on Thursday afternoon, according to Park's office.

The summit comes 10 months after Park visited the UAE for a ceremony marking the installation of a Korean-built nuclear reactor at a power plant under construction in Barakah, some 300 kilometers west of Abu Dhabi.

It is the first out of four reactors South Korea plans to provide the UAE under a 2009 deal worth US$20.4 billion that marked South Korea's first exports of nuclear reactors.

South Korea also hopes to win the lucrative right to operate the four power plants scheduled to be completed between 2017 and 2010.

"The construction of a nuclear power plant in Barakah ... carries great symbolic significance as it has laid the groundwork for cooperation not only for today but also for the next hundred years," Park said in an interview posted on the website of Emirates news agency WAM.

The summit comes as the UAE and other Mideast countries are pushing to diversify their economies that are heavily dependent on oil ahead of the inevitable advent of a post-oil era. South Korea believes Mideast countries' attempts to diversify their industries could present new business opportunities for South Korean companies.

"We are eager to expand the sphere of cooperation to a much broader range of areas, including healthcare, intellectual property, IT and new and renewable energy," Park said, according to the Emirates news agency.

The summit on Thursday would be the third between the two leaders in just over a year. The crown prince visited South Korea and met with Park in February 2014. They also met during Park's visit to the oil-rich capital of Abu Dhabi in May last year.

The crown prince is first in line to take over the seven-state federation from his half-brother, Emirati President Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The federation includes the regional commercial hub of Dubai.

The UAE is the third stop on Park's four-nation swing that will also take her to Qatar.

Earlier this week, she visited Kuwait and met with its emir before flying to Riyadh for talks with Saudi Arabia's newly enthroned King Salman.

A key centerpiece of Park's summit with Salman is a memorandum of understanding calling for a joint partnership on a nuclear reactor developed by South Korea to export to water-scarce countries, including the Middle East.

Hashim Yamani, who signed the MOU as head of Saudi Arabia's renewable energy agency KA CARE, expressed satisfaction that the MOU includes technology transfer and personnel training. He made the comment in a meeting with Park in Riyadh on Wednesday, according to Park's office.

South Korea said the MOU could help its companies win a US$2 billion project to build two mid-size commercial reactors in Saudi Arabia if the desert kingdom decides to build the reactors after a preliminary review set to end by 2018.

The move comes as Saudi Arabia pushes to develop nuclear reactors to meet its growing energy needs. The kingdom plans to install up to 18 nuclear reactors by 2040.

Also Wednesday, Park met with Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal and asked him to invest in South Korea's culture industry, Park's office said.

Alwaleed, chairman of Kingdom Holding Co., is known as the Saudi Warren Buffett and is No. 34 on Forbes magazine's list of the world's richest men for 2015 with a net worth of US$23 billion.

entropy@yna.co.kr
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