South Korean President will visit UAE to help sell nuclear power plants

2009/12/26

SEOUL: President Lee Myung-bak will visit the United Arab Emirates (UAE) this weekend as part of South Korea''s last-minute efforts to win a multi-billion dollar nuclear power plant project in the oil-rich country, said officials.

SEOUL: President Lee Myung-bak will visit the United Arab Emirates (UAE) this weekend as part of South Korea''s last-minute efforts to win a multi-billion dollar nuclear power plant project in the oil-rich country, said officials.

A South Korean consortium, led by the state-run Korea Electric Power Corporation, is vying with an international consortium led by France''s AREVA for the project.

"If South Korea is named the successful bidder, it's a victory of our technology, diplomacy and negotiations," said Lee Dong-kwan, top secretary to the president for public relations, to reporters.

"It will be a milestone on the road to an era of South Korean nuclear power plants in the international community," he added.

The UAE''s nuclear plant project is expected to generate contracts worth over US$41 billion in total. It was not clear how much the project the South Korean consortium was bidding for was worth.

If South Korea wins the deal, it will be its first sale of nuclear power plants abroad.

South Korea first built its nuclear power industry with U.S. technology in the 1970s. It has since localized over 95 percent of the technology, according to the industry data.

South Korean government was cautious about the prospect of winning the UAE project but industry analysts viewed Lee''s trip as a positive sign that the project will likely be given to the South Korean consortium.

"Whether South Korea will win the nuclear plant project is still unclear, but President Lee''s trip to the UAE will be part of our diplomatic efforts to win the project," the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said.

President Lee is scheduled to head back home late Sunday after a meeting with his UAE counterpart, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, according to Cheong Wa Dae. - BERNAMA