India-Korea defence co-production a win-win for both: Envoy

Smita Sharma 

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 13 

Close on the heels of the state visit of South Korean President Moon Jae-in to India, the country’s ambassador on Friday hoped India could be a manufacturing hub for defence co-production moving forward.

India and South Korea agreed to upgrading defence ties in the recent summit talks.

Today Ambassador Sin Bongkil in an interaction at FCC (Foreign Correspondents’ Club) underlined that importing defence items is a lot costlier and Korean companies have a keen interest to pitch for ‘Make in India’ in defence.

“If India and Korea could co-produce here, it will be good for all sides. It will be a win-win case. We think we can make a manufacturing base in India and export defence products to other countries,” the envoy said, adding that Korean defence technology was advanced owing to the many years of direct threat it faced from Pyongyang.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Moon inaugurated jointly this week the biggest manufacturing plant in the world of Korean telecom giant Samsung in Greater Noida which can produce around 120 million phones a year. 

The ambassador also expressed hope at the ongoing Korean Peninsula denuclearisation talks, an issue discussed between Modi and Moon too.

He argued that talks this time between Chairman Kim and Trump are different than in the past because of political will of all stakeholders involved, including China and the economic collapse that North Korea faces if the process fails.

“North Korea has achieved a certain amount of nuclear testing capacity. They have leverage. Also DPRK faces serious economic sanctions from the world,” Bongkil said.

He further remarked that denuclearisation could pave the way for economic integration of the two Koreas that would be key to any vision of re-unification of North and South. 

Elaborating upon the tripartite capacity building programmes in Afghanistan agreed to during Moon’s visit, the Korean ambassador explained for now the immediate area of cooperation will include Afghan police forces training in India with ROK financial aid.