Samsung’s Lee visits UAE nuclear plant project on first trip as chairman

Samsung Group leader Jay Y. Lee is in Abu Dhabi to meet with businesspeople and politicians and tour the Barakah nuclear power plant project in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on his first overseas business trip as group chairman.

The executive chairman of Samsung Electronics Co. on Sunday left for the UAE and on Tuesday visited the construction site of the third and fourth nuclear power units of the Barakah project, undertaken by a South Korean consortium that includes Samsung C&T Corp.

The visit marks his first overseas trip since he officially took the helm of the top Korean conglomerate in October.

Construction of the Barakah plant, the UAE's first nuclear power station, started in July 2012 and is partially operational.

The Barakah nuclear power plant is also Korea's first overseas nuclear power plant construction project.

"The Middle East is the land of opportunity, in the midst of great changes to find new growth engines," Lee told Samsung employees at the Barakah construction site.

ANOTHER OIL BOOM

The Middle Eastern region is enjoying a boom due to rising energy prices.

According to the International Monetary Fund, Saudi Arabia’s gross domestic product is forecast to rise 7.6% from last year to surpass $1 trillion this year. The UAE's central bank expects the country’s economy to expand 5.4% this year, up 1.6 percentage points from 2021.

Countries in the region are spending heavily on building and upgrading their infrastructure.

While Saudi Arabia is working on its Saudi Vision 2030 project, in which private investment alone exceeds 1,500 trillion won ($1.13 trillion), the UAE is pushing ahead with Abu Dhabi Economic Vision 2030, a 420 trillion won project to foster high-tech future industries.

In Abu Dhabi, Lee is expected to meet with UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan to discuss Masdar City, the country’s smart city project.

The Samsung leader has been building relations with countries in the Middle East.

SAUDI’S NEOM PROJECT

When Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman visited Seoul last month, Lee and other top Korean business leaders met with him to discuss business opportunities in the oil-rich kingdom, including the $500 billion NEOM megacity project.

The Saudi prince is pushing to build NEOM, a smart city to be fully run on renewable energy and cutting-edge technologies in a desert area in the kingdom's northern Tabuk Province.

The smart city is to operate on electricity from solar power and green hydrogen while employing 5G networks, the internet of things, cloud computing and robotics.

Samsung hopes to help NEOM’s city management systems with its advanced technologies, including 5G wireless communications, IoT and artificial intelligence.

Samsung C&T is already participating in a $10 billion project involving the construction of 10,000 houses in NEOM using a steel modular method.

Write to Jeong-Soo Hwang at hjs@hankyung.com
In-Soo Nam edited this article.