Korean Defense Industry Becoming a Global Powerhouse

Defense News ranked Korean Aerospace Industries (KAI) 79th and Rotem, a Korean defense company, 93rd in the world’s top 100 defense contractors on July 16. The U.S. military magazine reported that Korea is emerging as a global powerhouse in the defense industry.

The magazine also cited the Turkish government’s decision to buy 30 Korean training aircrafts (KT-1) and tanks (XK-2) as evidence of Korean military contractors seeing their export soaring. The magazine expects the size of Korean export in the defense industry to quadruple and reaching $1 billion within the next 3 or 4 years.

Defense News quoted a Korean defense official who reported that the export volume of KT-1 and XK-2 is $540 million, the second largest following that of the K-9 self-propelled artillery to Turkey in 2001 ($1 billion).

Notable Korean military equipment quoted by the magazine include the K-21 Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV) by Doosan Heavy Industry, the K-9 self-propelled artillery by Samsung TechWin, and military ships, submarines, cruise missiles and portable missiles by Hyundai Heavy Industry and Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME).

Lockheed Martin, Boeing, BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon rank first to fifth respectively in the list. Four of them excluding BAE Systems are U.S. contractors. The top five revenues are equal to 70 percent of the other 95 companies’ total revenues combined.

Among those on the top 100 list are 41 American companies and nine Japanese ones including Mitsubishi Heavy Industry.

srkim@donga.com