[Exclusive] Nuclear Power Exporting Country Omitted from Final Version of National Agenda

Nuclear Export Countries Excluded from Final National Tasks... Deputy Minister for Nuclear Power Also Omitted
Government Organization 'Slimming' Policy Impact... Some Ministries Including Ministry of the Interior Oppose
Existing Dedicated Team Comprises 8 Members... Insufficient to Support Government Policy
Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy "Not Abandoned... Plan to Re-negotiate with Ministry of the Interior in Second Half of This Year"

President Yoon Visits Cladding Material Storage for Shin Hanul Units 3 and 4
(Changwon=Yonhap News) Reporter Seo Myeong-gon = On the morning of June 22, President Yoon Seok-yeol visited Doosan Enerbility in Changwon, Gyeongnam, and received an explanation about the Korean nuclear power plant APR1400 at the cladding material storage for the reactors and steam generators of Shin Hanul Units 3 and 4. 2022.6.22
Photo by Seo Myeong-gon
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[Asia Economy Sejong=Reporter Lee Jun-hyung] It has been confirmed that the planned establishment of a new “Nuclear Power Export Division” within the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy under the Yoon Seok-yeol administration was omitted from the final version of the national agenda implementation plan. This is interpreted as a judgment that creating a new organization called the Nuclear Power Export Division does not align with the government’s philosophy of “organizational slimming.” However, there are concerns that the Yoon administration’s plan to expand the division responsible for supporting nuclear power exports from a “section” to a “bureau” level organization to enhance the competitiveness of K-Nuclear Power may be shaken.

According to comprehensive reporting on the 2nd, the plan to establish the Nuclear Power Export Division was excluded from the final version of the national agenda implementation plan. Earlier, on the 22nd of last month, the government finalized the national agenda implementation plan at a ministerial and vice-ministerial workshop held in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, presided over by President Yoon Seok-yeol. A government official stated, “The establishment of the Nuclear Power Export Division was not reflected in the final version of the national agenda implementation plan,” adding, “As the government is moving in the direction of ‘slimming down’ government organizations, many discussions about expanding ministry personnel were omitted.”

The government had pushed for the establishment of the Nuclear Power Export Division during the presidential transition committee period. Since “industrialization of nuclear power exports” was a key national agenda, it was judged necessary to strengthen related organizations. Accordingly, the transition committee included the plan to establish the Nuclear Power Export Division in the national agenda implementation plan completed in early May, just before the new government’s launch. The idea was to establish a bureau-level organization within the year and assign it as the practical head of the government-wide nuclear power export control tower, the “Nuclear Power Export Strategy Promotion Team.”

However, related ministries such as the Ministry of the Interior and Safety and the Ministry of Economy and Finance were negative about the Nuclear Power Export Division. Their reason was that establishing a bureau-level organization could lead to an excessive concentration of authority within the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. It is reported that the decisive reason the Nuclear Power Export Division was omitted from the final national agenda implementation plan was that some ministries opposed the expansion of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy’s organization even during the final negotiations.

The problem does not end there. The plan to establish a “Nuclear Power Vice Minister (Level 1)” included in the national agenda implementation plan by the transition committee was also omitted from the final version. The Nuclear Power Vice Minister was an election pledge made by Ahn Cheol-soo, a member of the People Power Party who chaired the transition committee, as part of strengthening nuclear power policy. In effect, all the organizational reform plans discussed by the transition committee to activate nuclear power exports have been canceled.

Given this situation, there are concerns that the government’s nuclear power strategy may lose momentum. Currently, the organization dedicated to nuclear power export work consists of only one section, the Nuclear Power Export Promotion Section of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, with a staff of eight. Having only one section-level organization is inevitably insufficient to support the government’s plan to export 10 nuclear reactors by 2030. The Nuclear Power Export Promotion Section is already handling all the practical work related to the Nuclear Power Export Strategy Promotion Team, which was supposed to be managed by a bureau-level organization. This is why concerns about work overload in the section are growing.

The government maintains that the Nuclear Power Export Division has not been scrapped. The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy plans to conduct an internal organizational review within the year and then renegotiate the establishment of the Nuclear Power Export Division with the Ministry of the Interior and Safety. A ministry official said, “We see strengthening the dedicated nuclear power export organization as an essential task,” adding, “We are reviewing various options to ensure it can be reflected in the organizational reform plan in the second half of this year.”