[Anchor]
Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Kim Jeong-gwan, who was in the United States for final negotiations to select investment projects for the U.S., returned home today (the 13th). Minister Kim stated that "we have grown close to an agreement on many issues" and that the goal is to reach a final settlement and make an announcement within this week.
Reporter Jeon Hyeong-u has the report.
[Reporter]
Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Kim Jeong-gwan met with U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and others in New York for three days starting from the 10th to conduct final negotiations regarding U.S. investment projects.
Returning this evening, Minister Kim stated that after continuing additional consultations with the U.S., if a final settlement is reached within this week, an announcement will be made as well.
[Kim Jeong-gwan / Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy: It is true that we have grown close to an agreement on many issues. There are still a few issues remaining. We plan to hold consultations once more through a video conference early this week.]
He also emphasized that the caps of 200 billion dollars for strategic investment and 20 billion dollars annually will not be exceeded, as originally agreed upon with the United States.
Last year, South Korea promised 350 billion dollars in investment to the U.S., including 150 billion dollars for shipbuilding cooperation, on the condition that tariffs be lowered from 25% to 15%, and has since been coordinating specific investment projects and detailed conditions.
The leading candidate for the first project is the construction of the Encinal gas-fired combined-cycle power plant in Texas.
One of the issues related to this is the supplier of the gas turbines, which account for 20 to 30 percent of the power plant project costs.
It is known that the U.S. wants to supply turbines from domestic U.S. companies, while South Korea wants to supply them from domestic Korean companies.
Other candidate projects mentioned include the construction of new large-scale nuclear power plants in the U.S. and participation in the Alaska LNG project.
In the case of nuclear plant construction, South Korea reportedly wants to build some using the Korean-type nuclear reactor model, whereas the U.S. is known to prefer the Westinghouse model.
It is also known that a plan for South Korea to acquire a stake in Westinghouse has been placed on the negotiation table.
The government plans to report the negotiation results to the National Assembly around the 17th.
[Video Editing: Park Chun-bae]
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