Title: Korea set to export homegrown reactor to Saudi Arabia

Source: Arirang TV

Link : https://youtu.be/NqDa6Jhs1UU

Date : March 3, 2015

We start with President Park Geun-hye′s Middle East tour. After a productive visit to Kuwait, the president is currently in Saudi Arabia where she signed a number of agreements to expand their economic cooperation in the areas of nuclear energy, creative economy and health care. Our Choi You-sun files this report from Riyadh. "Even though it′s the biggest supplier of oil to Korea, Saudi Arabia is seeking new non-oil energy sources for its rising domestic power demand. Riyadh plans to build a dozen or more nuclear reactors that can generate 18 gigawatts of electricity by 2040." At Tuesday′s summit between President Park Geun-hye and King Salman, Seoul and Riyadh signed a deal to jointly invest into studying the prospect of building at least two of Korea′s small 100-thousand-kilowatt nuclear reactors in Saudi Arabia. When the reactor construction is finalized after 2018, Korea expects a two-billion-dollar order and the world′s first export of a small to mid-sized nuclear reactor.

Nicknamed SMART, for its name System-Integrated Modular Advanced Reactor, the multi-functional reactor is about one-tenth the size of the more common type of reactor, and can be used to generate electricity and desalinate seawater. President Park anticipated entering the global market with Saudi Arabia, after constructing the reactors in the Arab country, then exporting them together to a third country. Korea also signed an agreement to share policies related to President Park′s creative economy model in the form of innovation-based startups and centers to support them. Korea′s SK Telecom, which runs one of the government′s innovation centers, separately sealed a deal with a Saudi telecommunications company, to export the conglomerate-government-startup-institut¬e cooperative model to the Arab nation. Korean health care firms will also participate in a Saudi pharmaceutical complex project, and a hospital plans to share its medical technology with a Saudi cancer center.

Choi You-sun, Arirang News, Riyadh.