DUBAI, seventeenth January, 2022 (WAM) — Etihad Credit Insurance (ECI), the UAE Federal export credit score firm, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Korea Trade Insurance Corporation (Ok-SURE), the official export credit score company (ECA) of South Korea, to spice up investments in sustainable inexperienced vitality, with a give attention to hydrogen manufacturing initiatives improvement and commerce relations between the 2 nations.
The signing ceremony, witnessed by Suhail bin Mohammed Al Mazrouei, Minister of Energy and Infrastructure, and Moon Sung-wook, Korea Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy, befell on the UAE-Korea Business Roundtable on Hydrogen Partnership.
The occasion was chaired by Moon Jae-in, President of South Korea and collectively organised by the Federation of UAE Chamber of Commerce and the Korea International Trade Association (KITA).
A number of state ministers, authorities officers, ministers, and representatives of main organisations from each nations, together with Mubadala, ADNOC, Emirates Steel, attended this excessive-degree enterprise discussion board on sustainable improvement.
Apart from the strategic cooperation settlement between ECI and Ok-SURE, the occasion additionally witnessed the signing of two extra agreements between UAE and Korea, highlighting the significance of company between authorities companies to foster vitality transition efforts to reverse local weather change.
On the sidelines of the discussion board, Massimo Falcioni, CEO of ECI, stated that export finance has an important function to play within the transition to a carbon-free society on the planet.
“The joint efforts by export credit agencies, corporates and financial sector need to be the drivers to facilitate the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. ECA-backed projects help secure sustainability in a wider sense to include social issues like access to clean energy and water as well as urban development. ECAs’ cover helps the financial sector provide the necessary liquidity to finance the transition by sharing the risk and provide long-term funding.”
Under the settlement between ECI and Ok-SURE, each state companies will work collectively to facilitate satisfactory assist for numerous collaborative initiatives, particularly on strategic sectors reminiscent of hydrogen economic system, renewable vitality, and electrical automobiles via a variety of commerce credit score insurance coverage options.
They may even be part of forces to assist the exporters working in numerous industries to enter the worldwide market with out worrying about fee delays arising from industrial or non-industrial dangers.
The partnership may even give attention to offering help in recovering claims of every entity via shut cooperation and coordinated actions.
Falcioni highlighted the robust bilateral commerce relationship between the UAE and South Korea and the sustainable development this settlement can create for the enterprise communities in every nation.
“We will fully support furtherly the energy cooperation between the UAE and Korea into the hydrogen sector, a core energy resource in the age of carbon neutrality, by offering UAE and Korean companies guarantees to reduce the cost of funding in medium and long term projects, into the production and distribution of both blue and green hydrogen. This agreement between the export credit agencies of the UAE and South Korea will serve as a catalyst in enhancing the competitive edge of export and business communities in the respective countries. Moreover, the crucial aspect of this pact lies in its greater focus on reinforcing initiatives that aim to reduce carbon emission, reflecting the UAE’s national drive to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050,” Falcioni added.
In addition to diversifying the nation’s economic system, ECI goals to strengthen the standing of the UAE as a pacesetter in sustainable improvement and handle the challenges posed by international warming. Its contribution to the event of the vitality and sustainability sector comes according to the nation’s “Energy Strategy 2050”, a nationwide drive to realize internet-zero emissions by 2050, making the UAE the primary Middle East and North Africa (MENA) nation to take action.
Meanwhile, Inho Lee, Chairman and President of Ok-SURE, stated, “Our coordinated efforts and insurance solutions will eliminate many potential risks our traders and businesses face in a volatile marketplace, which has become more prone to instability due to the pandemic fallouts. It will also strengthen our collaborative ongoing and future sustainability projects, proving to the world how cooperation between nations is indispensable to alleviate the grave ecological concerns of our times.”
The UAE is Korea’s largest buying and selling companion within the Arab world, with bilateral commerce alternate valued at $9.4 billion (AED34.5 billion) in 2020. Non-oil commerce between the nations within the first half of 2021 rose to $2.1 billion (AED7.7 billion).
In current years, they turned particular consideration to strategically essential nationwide industries, reminiscent of renewable and nuclear vitality, hydrocarbons, healthcare and logistics.
Major collaborative initiatives between the 2 nations embody the $20bn Barakah Nuclear Power Plant in Abu Dhabi, with building led by Korea Electric Power Corporation in a consortium that additionally contains Hyundai, Samsung, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power and Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction.
Earlier this yr, UAE’s sovereign wealth fund Mubadala turned a part of a consortium that acquired a majority stake in Korean beauty pharmaceutical firm Hugel for $1.5bn. In 2020, Korea’s NH Investment & Securities joined a gaggle of asset administration and sovereign wealth funds to speculate $20.7bn in Abu Dhabi National Oil Company’s midstream property.