First Export Of K9 Self-propelled Guns

Highly advanced Korean model of K9 155 mm self-propelled guns will be exported to Turkey for the first time.

Ministry of National Defense announced yesterday that it agreed with Turkey to export a batch of 300 K9 self-propelled guns for the next 10 years, and the Turkey Embassy in Korea signed a contract with Samsung Techwin to supply the parts for 20 K9 self-propelled guns.

The amount of the first contract is US $ 60 million, and the total amount of export will be more than US $ 10 billion (about 1.3 trillion won) by 2011. Especially, this contract will contribute to improve the international trust in the South Korean defense industry because this is the first cooperative business with a foreign country regarding the defense industry technology that is independently developed by South Korea. K9 self-propelled guns are not inferior to the competing German model PzH 2000 self-propelled guns. K9 is also much cheaper than PzH 2000.

Turkey, with the technical support from Samsung Techwin and ADD, has designed the body and the outward appearance by modifying the Korean model of K9 since 1999, and will assemble the rest in Turkey with parts supplied from Korea.

A Ministry of National Defense official said, ``Not only self-propelled guns, but also additional cooperative business, such as long-range ammunitions and armored motorcars for the ammunition transportation, is also expected. Since Turkey is influential to the neighboring central Asian countries, exports to the third countries will be possible.``

klimt@donga.com