South Korea Gets Big In India, To Help HSL Build Ships

Following the recent MoU between India and South Korea for Korean help in building 5 Fleet Support Ships at Hindustan Shipyard Limited (HSL) Visakhapatnam, and an earlier tie up between L&T and South Korea’s Techwin for collaborative manufacture of 155mm guns for the Indian Army, South Korea’s profile as an Indian defence partner is on the rise. A deal on building minesweepers at Goa Shipyard is likely

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India has quickly, but effectively, added another arms supplier to its list, after Russia, US, Israel, France and United Kingdom. India has added South Korea to this illustrious list of nations that are major suppliers to India of weapons and defence systems that keep India safe and secure from the evil eyes of the enemy.

South Korea has broken into the elite league by bagging a few high-yield deals with India in the last couple of years. 2017 has been a major success for South Korean arms suppliers and warship builders. On April 22 this year, the governments of India and the Republic of Korea (South Korea) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for joint shipbuilding. While India nominated Hindustan Shipyard Limited at Visakhapatnam to be the Indian defence shipyard in this partnership, South Korea is to name its shipyard later. On April 21, India and South Korea signed the inter-governmental memorandum of understanding for Defence Industry Cooperation in Shipbuilding at a ceremony in New Delhi. The MoU was signed by Secretary (Defence Production) Ashok Kumar Gupta from the Indian side and Minister of Defence Acquisition and Programme Administration (DAPA) Chang Myoung-Jin from the South Korean side. The MoU will help the 'Make in India' initiative of the Government of India.

The salient points of the MoU are: (a) Develop and strengthen defence industry cooperation between Republic of India and the Republic of Korea; (b) The two sides will recommend the organisations for collaborating in the implementation of specific projects; (c) The organisations recommended for cooperative projects may conclude separate agreements (contracts) between them to implement the specific projects; and (d) The MoU will come into effect from the date of signature by both sides and will be initially valid for a period of five years and would be automatically extendable for further successive five year at a time.