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| Export-Import Bank of Korea (Eximbank) CEO Bang Moon-kyu, left, shakes hands with Minister for Economic Development Tim Pallas of the Australian state of Victoria during his visit to Australia last week. Courtesy of Eximbank |
By Yi Whan-woo
The Export-Import Bank of Korea (Eximbank) is reaching out to major Australian energy and mining companies to provide Korea with a stable supply of resources as well as more financing opportunities in the Indo-Pacific region.
The state-run bank said Monday its CEO Bang Moon-kyu met executives of Santos, Australia's leading oil and gas producer, last week.
They discussed ways to bolster a development project involving Santos and SK E&S, an energy subsidiary of SK Group, in the Barossa gas field off Australia's northern coast.
The project is worth $5.6 billion, through which Korea wants to ensure a stable supply of liquefied natural gas (LNG) amid the recent instability in LNG prices.
Bang also visited the construction site of North East Link (NEL), a tunneling project to build twin, three-lane tunnels approximately six kilometers in length connecting the Metropolitan Ring Road and the Eastern Freeway in Australia's southeastern state of Victoria.
NEL is Victoria's biggest road project so far. The state plans to spend 100 billion Australian dollars ($74.3 billion) between 2021 and 2051 on infrastructure construction.
Accordingly, the Eximbank CEO met Victoria's Minister for Economic Development Tim Pallas and executives from Capella Capital, an industry leader in the infrastructure sector. They discussed possible measures to expand Korean businesses' participation in related projects in the future.
Bang also met executives from Hancock Prospecting, a mining firm that has formed a partnership with Korean steel giant POSCO on manufacturing of low-carbon steel materials.
He visited the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) and the National Australia Bank (NEB), too. Among the topics covered were kangaroo bonds, or debts issued in the Australian market by foreign firms and denominated in the Australian currency.
The Eximbank CEO expressed optimism that bilateral business cooperation is expanding over infrastructure projects in Australia.
"Eximbank will continue to provide support for the Korean companies and help their sales campaigns," he said in a press release.
