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At the signing ceremony, Chairman Kim noted that “this MOU, signed as part of efforts to strengthen Korea-UK economic cooperation, will certainly boost the participation of UK and Korean companies in large-scale projects in sectors such as natural resources development and petrochemical plants. In particular, Korean companies will be able to widen their scope of cooperation with companies in developed markets by accessing UKEF’s financial networks.”
The need for co-financing among financial institutions is increasing as the size of individual projects grow in parallel with the number of investment-development-type projects led by Korean companies throughout their lifecycles, from development to operation.
Korea Eximbank and UKEF have already co-financed a USD 19.3 billion deal this year to export petrochemical facilities to Saudi Arabia’s Sadara Project.
The MOU, which defines a more concrete framework of cooperation between the two agencies, is expected to accelerate the joint entry of Korean and UK companies into third-country project markets.
On November 5, Korea Eximbank also signed an MOU with the leading offshore deepwater drilling company Seadrill, promising USD 1 billion in financing for Seadrill’s purchases of maritime drilling platforms from Korean shipbuilders.
Seadrill has ordered a total of 17 drilling platforms including drillships from Korea, worth a combined amount of USD 8.9 billion.
The MOU is likely to further enhance the global market dominance of Korean shipyards.
Korea Eximbank is scheduled to sign one more MOU with the UK global investment bank Barclays on November 7.
Chairman Kim noted, “During our trip to France and the United Kingdom, we managed to build and expand relationships with a wide range of entities including an ECA, a public-sector financial institution, an international development bank, an oil major, an offshore drilling company and an investment bank. We will make sure to not let such an achievement go to waste, so that Korean companies searching for project opportunities will benefit from our enlarged global network.”
