1 Hour 30 Minutes Tea Meeting at Lotte Hotel
Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong is leaving the hotel after a meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia at Lotte Hotel in Jung-gu, Seoul on the 17th. Photo by Yoon Dong-ju doso7@
[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Cho] Lee Jae-yong, Chairman of Samsung Electronics, Chey Tae-won, Chairman of SK Group, Chung Eui-sun, Chairman of Hyundai Motor Group, and other major domestic business leaders met with Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, who is visiting Korea on the 17th, to extensively discuss economic cooperation plans including Saudi Arabia's mega new city project, 'NEOM City.' The business community expects that this meeting served as an opportunity for the heads of Korean conglomerates and Crown Prince bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, to strengthen personal ties and explore various cooperation opportunities between the two countries.
At the informal meeting with Crown Prince bin Salman held at Lotte Hotel in Sogong-dong, Seoul, in the afternoon, eight heads of Korea's top 20 conglomerates attended, including Chairman Lee Jae-yong, Chairman Chey Tae-won, Chairman Chung Eui-sun, Vice Chairman Kim Dong-kwan of Hanwha Solutions, President Jeong Ki-sun of Hyundai Heavy Industries Group, Chairman Lee Jae-hyun of CJ Group, Chairman Park Jung-won of Doosan Group, and Chairman Lee Hae-wook of DL (formerly Daelim) Group. After the meeting, President Jeong Ki-sun told reporters, "Since we have been working together on various projects for a long time, we agreed to look at many future opportunities together."
According to the business community, the informal meeting, which lasted about an hour and a half, broadly discussed various cooperation plans centered on the NEOM City project, which has a total project cost of $500 billion (approximately 670 trillion KRW).NEOM City is a mega project to build a 170 km linear city called 'The Line' inside the Red Sea in northwestern Saudi Arabia, a marine industrial complex named 'Oxagon,' and a mountain tourism complex called 'Trojena.' It is expected to open extensive business opportunities in urban infrastructure, information technology (IT), energy, and other fields, leading to fierce global bidding competitions.
The group leaders are known to have explored future contract opportunities and business cooperation plans based on each group's core businesses. It is speculated that Chairman Lee Jae-yong took an active stance in securing contracts for the NEOM City project based on his personal friendship with Crown Prince bin Salman. Samsung has already formed a consortium with Samsung C&T and Hyundai Engineering & Construction to win the contract for the tunnel construction of 'The Line' in NEOM City and began construction with the first blast on the 8th (local time). Samsung C&T also signed an MOU with the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) and Korea Electric Power Corporation for a $6.5 billion (approximately 8.5 trillion KRW) green hydrogen and ammonia plant construction project.
There are also expectations that discussions took place to comprehensively strengthen cooperation in hydrogen and other eco-friendly energy development and nuclear power-related projects. SK Group, which focuses on eco-friendly energy as a future core business, continues to invest in leading startups worldwide that possess key technologies in hydrogen and future energy fields. Saudi Arabia, aiming to move away from an oil-centered industrial structure, is also focusing its investments on hydrogen and other eco-friendly future energy sectors.
Hyundai Motor Chairman Chung Eui-sun is entering the Lotte Hotel in Jung-gu, Seoul on the 17th to meet Crown Prince Bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. Photo by Yoon Dong-joo doso7@
Hyundai Motor Group is also actively engaged in building a hydrogen ecosystem by focusing on hydrogen-based mobility technology and product development and establishing a global hydrogen supply chain with overseas companies. Chairman Chung Eui-sun is believed to have explored cooperation plans for smart city mobility businesses, including building a future aerial mobility (FAM) ecosystem. Hyundai Heavy Industries Group has also identified the 'Hydrogen Dream 2030' roadmap, which leads hydrogen production, transportation, and supply by mobilizing the group's full capabilities, as a future growth engine.
In the case of Doosan Group, Doosan Enerbility has established its position in the nuclear power plant equipment sector by supplying major nuclear power plant equipment such as reactors and steam generators domestically and internationally. In April this year, it signed an agreement with U.S.-based NuScale Power to start manufacturing small modular reactors (SMRs) and produced and tested a prototype reactor module.
Vice Chairman Kim Dong-kwan is believed to have explored cooperation possibilities in Hanwha Group's key business areas such as solar power, urban air mobility (UAM), and defense. Hanwha signed a defense contract worth about 1 trillion KRW with the Saudi Ministry of Defense in March this year. Chairman Lee Hae-wook is known to have explored various cooperation possibilities in construction, carbon reduction, and carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) sectors based on DL Group's accumulated local construction performance in Saudi Arabia.
Additionally, Chairman Lee Jae-hyun of CJ is believed to have discussed matters related to Hallyu (Korean Wave) content exchange. CJ has been steadily promoting cultural exchanges, with its affiliate CJ ENM signing an MOU with the Saudi Ministry of Culture in June this year to expand cooperation and cultural exchange across various fields such as film, music, performances, and food. They also plan to jointly host various cultural events and invest in cultural content over the next ten years until 2032.
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
