RIYADH — South Korea’s leader arrived in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, where he was greeted in Riyadh by the kingdom’s crown prince and an honour guard marching band.
It was the second stop on a Mideast tour by South Korean President Moon Jae-in and his wife, who were greeted on the tarmac by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. All were masked and President Moon did not shake hands with the prince, in line with coronavirus social distancing practises, AP reported.
It is the latest visit by a head of state to Saudi Arabia as a growing number of world leaders resume bilateral meetings and trips abroad following Covid-19 vaccine rollouts in many parts of the world.
Relations between South Korea and Saudi Arabia date back to the early 1960s, and have been underpinned since by South Korea’s heavy reliance on oil and gas imports to power its energy-intensive economy, dominated by manufacturing industries from cars to petrochemicals.
Saudi Arabia is South Korea’s biggest economic partner in the Middle East. The kingdom also is Seoul’s top trading partner, with an annual trade volume of some $250 billion, though over 90 per cent of South Korea’s imports from Saudi Arabia are concentrated in oil, according to a 2018 report published by the King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies on bilateral relations.
The report noted that South Korean exports to the kingdom are also not varied, consisting mostly of automobiles and construction equipment. Nearly 90 per cent of South Korea’s investments in Saudi Arabia are in the construction sector.
Saudi media reported President Moon will meet with Yasir al-Rumayyan, chairman of Aramco, the state-controlled Saudi oil company, who also heads Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. Investment ministers from both countries will also meet during the Riyadh visit.
President Moon’s stop in Saudi Arabia came after his visit to the United Arab Emirates, where he reportedly reached a preliminary $3.5 billion deal to sell Seoul’s surface-to-air missiles to Abu Dhabi and pledged deeper cooperation with the Arab country.
The South Korean leader is scheduled to visit Egypt next.
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