by Ahmed Kamal
The Korea Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) in cooperation with the Korea Marine Equipment Association (KOMEA) and the Suez Canal Authority is set to organise a conference titled “Marine Equipment Roadshow & A/S in the Middle East and Africa 2015” on 14 and 15 September.
The KOTRA office in Egypt issued a statement saying that the conference will include business meetings in the field of marine equipment. The statement added that a number of Korean companies specialised in marine industry will attend the event, and on the second day the delegation will visit the Suez Canal Authority and the Port Said shipyard.
Several Korean companies, including Samsung Electronics, are operating in Egypt. Samsung has created more than 2,700 jobs, and exports more than $800 million worth of products to neighboring countries in the Middle East and North Africa.
There are no official statistics in South Korea regarding the volume of its investments in the Egyptian market, however, KOTRA announced that there are some 30 Korean firms operating in the local market.
The Korean experience is very important in economic development given the fact that despite Korea’s limited natural resources, the country occupied the eleventh place as one of the fastest growing economies in the world, the Minister of Industry and Foreign Trade Mounir Fakhry Abdel-Nour said.
He pointed out that Hyundai Engineering and Construction, a new Korean firm, intends to invest in Egypt, calling on the company to invest in the Suez Canal Axis Development scheme to upgrade infrastructure in the zone and carry out projects in the energy sector.
The minister said that the GDP of Korea in 1965 totaled $3bn, while Egypt’s GDP in the same year reached $5.1bn.
