US top buyer of Korean weapons

By Lee Tae-hoon

The United States has been the biggest importer of Korean military products with arms sales to the superpower reaching $1.7 billion between January 2006 and June 2011, an opposition lawmaker said Wednesday.

Citing data obtained from the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA), Rep. Seo Jong-pyo of the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) said that local weapons firms have mostly exported aircraft components and ammunition to the United States.

According to DAPA, the United States is also the biggest supplier of weapons to Korea, followed by Germany, Israel, the United Kingdom and Turkey.

The lawmaker said Turkey, a close ally of Korea during the 1950-53 Korean War, came second on the client list with $1 billion in purchases that included KT-1 trainers.

Indonesia, which has expressed its willingness to jointly develop a new advanced fighter jet with Korea, came third with $780 million in purchases that included T-50 Golden Eagle supersonic jets.

Indonesia is expected to become the top buyer of Korean weaponry in the near future as it has been pushing to expand a bilateral arms trade deal and is expected to announce Korea as the preferred bidder for its submarine acquisition program, worth $1.08 billion.

Malaysia took the fourth spot with $397 million, trailed by Iraq with $329 million, Pakistan $119 million, Egypt with $10.2 million and the Philippines with $9.4 million.

The lawmaker noted that the volume of arms exports rose to $1.19 billion last year, up about 2 percent from $1.17 billion in 2009.

He said the country’s arms exports, which nosedived to $253 million in 2006, increased for the fourth year in a row last year, helping it to become one of the country’s future growth drivers.

According to the figures Seo referred to, Korean firms sold $681 million worth of weapons overseas in the first half of the year.

Korea is planning to revamp its arms industry with an ambitious goal of increasing arms exports to $4 billion by 2020.