By Lee Tae-hoon
Despite the global economic recession, Korea’s weapons exports hit a record high of $1.2 billion last year, up about 2 percent or $20 million from 2009, a defense official said Tuesday.
“It was a remarkable achievement, considering that the signing of major contracts were postponed and the global economy was in a slump in 2010,” Chung Jae-yoon, spokesman of the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA), said.
The country’s arms exports, which nosed dived to $253 million in 2006, increased for the fourth year in a row last year, making it one of the country’s new growth drivers.
However, the state-run acquisition agency fell short of meeting its 2010 export target of $1.5 billion, mainly because of a failure to sell T-50 trainer jets to Singapore and partly due to a delay in exporting K9 howitzers to Australia and Egypt.
"Above all, the failure to export T-50 trainer jets last year largely attributed to the lower result," Chung said, adding that the export of the K9 has been postponed due to political circumstances in Australia and Egypt.
Earlier, DAPA pushed to export $500 million worth of the indigenous jets to Singapore, but failed to do so due to its high price. The underperformance of the K9 self-propelled howitzers in the wake of North Korea’s artillery attack on Yeongpyeong Island in November last year is also blamed for its slow sales.
Korea is planning to revamp its arms industry with an ambitious goal of increasing arms exports to $4 billion by 2020.
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