South Africa may be missing out on opportunities to attract well known and internationally reput- able South Korean engineering and construction companies, says law firm ENSafrica projects and project finance department senior associate Neil Coertse.
“If we consider the projects that various South Korean organisations have undertaken in fields, such as shipbuilding, petrochemical plants, oil and gas projects, power plants and civil engineering, it becomes clear that they possess and could transfer enormous breadth and depth of skill and technical know-how when it comes to significant infrastructure-related projects,” he says.
South Korea’s relationship with Africa, Coertse notes, has always revolved primarily around the pursuit of diplomatic recognition and political legitimacy. Until recently, South Korea has maintained a rather limited and low-key engagement with various jurisdictions across Africa.
“In 2006, former Korean President Roh Moo-hyun visited various African countries, which was the start of South Korea’s focus on what has since become known as their ‘resources diplomacy’,” he says.
Coertse points out that these visits focused on Algeria, Egypt and Nigeria and led to several bilateral agreements, resulting in the linkage between overseas development assistance funded projects, resource concessions and large-scale infrastructure bids.
In that year, the first Korea-Africa Forum was held in Seoul under Moo-hyun’s leadership.
“The general consensus at the forum was that South Korea had the potential to become a key player on the African continent and would be able to contribute to Africa’s economic development, while boosting its own prospects,” Coertse says.
At the third Korea-Africa Forum, which was held in 2012, the Seoul Declaration was adopted, acknowledging the role of industries in improving productivity, competitiveness and promoting economic transformation and diversification across Africa.
Moreover, the Seoul Declaration called for further efforts by all parties concerned to strengthen existing ties. In addition, a specific action plan for the period 2013 to 2015 unambiguously declared South Korea’s intentions to “support the formulation of economic development strategies which are essential for Africa’s development”. “T
he most recent diplomatic mis- sion to Tanzania, led by the chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea Ahn Hong Joon, called for the deepening of diplomatic ties between the two countries.” H
owever, Tanzania is not the only African jurisdiction that South Korea is interested in. The Korean Institute for International Economic Policy
has identified Africa as an enormous opportunity and the
Korea Cooperation International Agency (KOICA), build a $4.5-million ultra-modern vocational training institute in Kampala, Uganda.
“This facility is aimed at increasing hands-on training in various industrial sectors of the economy. KOICA resident representative in Uganda Kang Younhwa is optimistic that the vocational training institute will bridge the youth unemployment gap and help nurture and develop skills that are fundamental in the process of transforming the country from peasantry to modernity,” he says.
Coertse believes that South Africa will stand to benefit greatly from the skills that South Korean businesses have to offer.
“Perhaps South Africa can take a leaf from the Tanzanian and Ugandan books and seek to establish ties with South Korea, thereby establishing South Africa as an attractive investment opportunity for Korean businesses to partake in our construction and engineering projects. “As South Korea cannot afford to ignore Africa, we can similarly not afford to ignore South Korea,” he concludes.