South Korea enterprise heavyweights together with Korean Air and Hyundai unveiled multibillion offers in the United States on Monday, following the summit between the 2 international locations’ leaders in Washington, DC.
At least 4 Korean conglomerates have introduced offers and investment plans value tens of billions of {dollars}, similar to plans by the nation’s high airliner Korean Air to spend $50 billion on plane and engine orders from Boeing and others.
South Korean companies are anticipated to speculate a complete of $150 billion in the US, in response to President Lee Jae Myung’s workplace.
Lee concluded his first summit with President Donald Trump on the White House on Monday, which got here after Seoul scrambled to safe a last-minute tariff deal to avert 25% tariffs on Korean exports to the US.
At the time, the 2 sides agreed to a decreased 15% tariffs on Korean items, and a $350 billion investment circulate from Korea to the US, earmarked for shipbuilding, in addition to spending on semiconductors, secondary batteries, biologics and power.
It is unclear whether or not the $150 billion value of offers introduced this week can be a part of that complete.
Traveling alongside Lee was a bevy of enterprise executives from a few of South Korea’s high conglomerates, together with CEOs of Samsung Electronics, SK Group, Hyundai Motor Group, LG and Korean Air, who attended a South Korea-US enterprise spherical desk after the summit. Executives from 21 American enterprise, together with Nvidia, OpenAI, IBM, Google, Boeing and General Motors, additionally took half.
“To create manufacturing business renaissance, where both countries can win, let’s advance our cooperations in strategic industry including shipbuilding and nuclear and high-tech industry including semiconductor, AI and bio to enhance global competitiveness,” Lee mentioned in an announcement on Monday.
For the $50 billion deal, Korean Air mentioned it intends to buy 103 plane from Boeing, together with engines and a upkeep program from GE Aerospace and CFM International, it mentioned in an announcement.
The plane buy order contains 20 Boeing 777-9s, 25 Boeing 787-10s, 50 Boeing 737-10s, and eight Boeing 777-8F freighters, which will probably be delivered in phases, it added.
Hyundai Motor Group, in the meantime, said it will add an additional $5 billion to the $21 billion in US investment it announced in March.
The conglomerate, which personal automakers Hyundai, Kia and Genesis, needs to broaden its car and elements manufacturing in the US. Some of the cash may even be used to construct a brand new metal mill in Louisiana and a state-of-the-art robotics facility, in response to a statement.
The complete investment, from 2025 to 2028, is anticipated to create 25,000 direct jobs, it mentioned.
During the roundtable on Monday, South Korea’s state-owned Korea Gas Corporation additionally signed a purchase order settlement to purchase 3.3 million further tons of liquefied pure gasoline from the US yearly for a decade beginning in 2028, the nation’s official information company Yonhap reported.
Samsung Heavy Industries, a significant shipbuilder in South Korea, mentioned it has signed a strategic partnership with the Oregon-based Vigor Marine Group to cooperate on upkeep, restore and overhaul US Navy assist ships, Yonhap reported individually on Tuesday.