- India and South Korea will expand cooperation in the energy sector.
- South Korea’s first presidential state visit to India in eight years.
- The South Korean president will visit Vietnam after India.
India and South Korea said on Monday they would boost their economic ties by expanding cooperation in energy, critical minerals, shipbuilding, semiconductors and steel, as they seek to double their trade to $50 billion by 2030.
New Delhi and Seoul also agreed to resume and intensify negotiations to give new energy to their 2010 trade deal, as India wants its trade to be more balanced and South Korea wants greater market access to the world’s fastest-growing major economy.
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung is in India for a three-day visit, South Korea’s first presidential state visit to the country in eight years.
“We decided to enhance the economic cooperation framework between the two countries to create a new engine for shared growth,” Lee told reporters after talks with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The two countries created a ministerial-level economic cooperation committee for the first time, Lee said, adding that they will strengthen cooperation in areas such as nuclear power plants, clean energy, as well as trade and investment.
With the Iran war squeezing global energy supplies, India and South Korea will also continue to cooperate to ensure stable supplies of energy resources and key raw materials such as gasoline, Lee added.
Modi said Lee’s visit was extremely significant and the two countries had taken important decisions to boost two-way trade to $50 billion by 2030 from around $27 billion at present.
“Today we are laying the foundation for the success story of the next decade,” Modi said, recalling the strong civilizational ties between the two countries dating back several centuries.
Big investment in India’s steel sector
Indian Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said he held talks with his South Korean counterpart Yeo Han-koo and discussed ways to resume and renew the trade pact and explored opportunities to deepen cooperation in the areas of industry, green energy and digital trade.
Lee will attend a joint business forum later on Monday, where about 250 South Korean participants are expected, including leaders of well-known names in India such as Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Motor and LG Group, South Korean news agency Yonhap said.
The two sides also plan to sign a total of 20 private sector memorandums of understanding on the sidelines of the forum, covering areas including shipbuilding, digital technology and energy, Yonhap said.
Separately, South Korea’s Posco Holdings said in a regulatory filing on Monday that its steelmaking unit plans to build an integrated steel plant in a joint venture with India’s JSW in Odisha state. Posco’s investment until the end of 2031 is expected to be about $1.09 billion, according to the document.
The joint venture agreement to set up a 6 million tonne per annum steel plant in Odisha was announced last week.
At a policy seminar in South Korea’s parliament last week, Maeng Hyun-chul, a researcher at Seoul National University’s Asia Center, highlighted India’s long-standing complaint about a growing trade deficit with South Korea and said political ties had not kept pace with trade ones.
South Korea had a trade surplus of $12.8 billion last year, with exports worth $19.2 billion and imports worth $6.4 billion, according to data from the Korea International Trade Association.
Lee will visit Vietnam after India.
