Anchor: President Yoon Suk Yeol held summit talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during the second day of his state visit to Saudi Arabia on Sunday. There, the two covered many topics, including economic cooperation, regional security and the supply and demand of crude oil, while their nations signed deals worth some 15-point-six billion U.S. dollars.
Max Lee reports. 

Report: Marking the first state visit by a South Korean leader to Saudi Arabia, President Yoon Suk Yeol sat down with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the first time in about a year.

In their summit, Yoon said relations between the two countries have improved significantly with the mutual visit between the leaders, who discussed strengthening bilateral economic cooperation and advancing it in areas such as cutting-edge technology and culture.

After the meeting, some 50 deals and memoranda of understandings(MOUs) were signed between companies and institutions of the two countries, with the presidential office announcing the deals to be worth some 21 trillion won, or 15-point-six billion U.S. dollars.

The contracts and MOUs cover a wide range of sectors, including hydrogen energy, crude oil, food and medical products, adding to the 29 billion dollars in existing MOUs and contracts signed during the crown prince’s visit to Seoul last November.

The top office added that 60 percent of the projects benefiting from the initial investment have seen tangible results.

The two leaders paid close attention to the issue of crude oil supply and demand as concerns grow over rising global oil prices due to the on-going armed conflict between Israel and Hamas.

The state-run Korea National Oil Corporation and Saudi Arabia’s national oil giant, Saudi Aramco, agreed to create a joint crude oil reserve of five-point-three million barrels at a storage facility in the South Korean city of Ulsan by 2028.

On the Israel-Hamas war, the leaders agreed that a deterioration in the humanitarian situation must be prevented. 

Discussions on large-scale defense industry cooperation are also in their final stages.

Meanwhile, South Korean companies have joined in the bidding for 25 billion dollars of the total 500 billion dollars’-worth of projects to be carried out in Saudi Arabia’s massive Neom eco-friendly smart city in the Middle Eastern nation’s Tabuk Province.

The presidential office further stressed that it will strive to ensure that investment promises are implemented and lead to concrete results such as creation of jobs.
Max Lee, KBS World Radio News.