Yoon on Saudi Arabia's Largest Ever Contract Win: "Will Be a Solid Foundation for Joint Prosperity"

Hyundai Construction Wins $5 Billion 'Amiral Project' Contract
Yoon's Summit Diplomacy Success... "Government Will Continue to Monitor and Support"

President Yoon Suk-yeol stated on the 25th that Hyundai Engineering & Construction's securing of the largest-ever project in Saudi Arabia "will not only strengthen the economic cooperation between the two countries but also serve as a solid foundation for their joint prosperity."

According to the Presidential Office, this project involves the construction of a petrochemical plant for Saudi Arabia's oil company Aramco (the Amiral Project), with a scale reaching 5 billion dollars. It is the highest-value project ever won by South Korea in Saudi Arabia and ranks as the 7th largest project historically, following the Barakah Nuclear Power Plant project in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2009 and the Karbala Refinery project in Iraq in 2014.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

Most importantly, this achievement is significant as it resulted from high-level diplomacy following the summit meeting in November last year between President Yoon and Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman, where they agreed to develop bilateral relations into a future-oriented strategic partnership and to promote large-scale economic cooperation in the infrastructure sector. The order volume in the first half of the year also increased significantly. Despite challenging conditions such as global economic uncertainty, prolonged high interest rates and inflation worldwide, and weak oil prices, overseas construction orders in the first half reached 13.7 billion dollars, a 14% increase compared to the same period last year (12 billion dollars).

Earlier, President Yoon emphasized through the 7th and 11th Emergency Economic and Livelihood Meetings and this year's New Year's address that "it is necessary to create an order environment to revitalize overseas construction orders through the establishment of a government-level global cooperation system," and pledged to foster infrastructure construction as a new export engine.

The government expects additional achievements in various regions, including large-scale infrastructure projects in the Middle East such as the Bismayah New City project in Iraq and the NEOM project in Saudi Arabia, the new capital city project in Indonesia, and expansion of orders in the North American market including the United States. A Presidential Office official stated, "We plan to continuously review and support Korea-Saudi economic cooperation tasks through export strategy meetings chaired by the President and the Korea-Middle East Public-Private Cooperation Committee."