South Korea, Indonesia Reaffirms Cooperation in Defence Industry

SEOUL/JAKARTA: Senior defence officials of South Korea and Indonesia held a video conference and reaffirmed their commitment for cooperation in the defence industry, Seoul’s arms procurement agency said today.

During the annual consultations session, the two sides agreed to beef up cooperation to protect defence technologies and discussed other pending issues, according to South Korea’s Defence Acquisition Programme Administration.

Maj Gen Sung Il, an international cooperation officer at the agency, represented the South Korean delegation, while his counterpart was Maj Gen Dadang Hendrayudha of Indonesia’s defence ministry. Eight companies from the two countries also took part in the virtual meeting and introduced their products, it said.

“It was a meaningful meeting that could help resolve pending defence industry issues between the two countries and will greatly contribute to strengthening their cooperation down the road,” Sung was quoted by Yonhap as saying.

The Nov 24  talks took place as Indonesia is hundreds of millions of dollars in arrears on its dues for South Korea’s next-generation multi-role fighter development project in which it has agreed to fund some of the development costs as a partner nation, the news agency report said.

Indonesia joined the KF-X project, agreeing to shoulder 20 percent of the development cost of the 8.8 trillion-won (US$7.3 billion) project, or about 1.7 trillion won, in an effort to procure aircraft for its air force and to advance the aerospace industry, according to the report. But the Southeast Asian country failed to pay around 500 billion won it was supposed to pay as of end-August. –shp/mgm (Image: Korea Aerospace Industries/KF-X)