South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Sunday in Dubai expressed his country’s desire to accelerate cooperation with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) state in green technologies for the economy of the hydrogen.
Korea and the UAE will “extend their energy cooperation to the hydrogen sector, an essential energy resource in the era of carbon neutrality”, Moon said at a business forum he attended in part of a three-day visit to the Gulf country.
“Korea and the UAE have made many advances through deeper cooperation in traditional energy sectors, including oil and nuclear power plants,” he added, noting that
the Gulf country has the potential to produce blue hydrogen, derived from natural gas.
The two countries have been seeking to expand their cooperation in other sectors since South Korea won a $20 billion contract in 2009 to build four nuclear reactors in Barakah, United Arab Emirates.
Hydrogen is an environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels, as hydrogen-powered cars only produce water by generating energy. Hydrogen can be produced as a by-product in various industrial facilities, such as petrochemical plants.
President Moon began a tour on Saturday that will take him to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. This tour, which will continue on January 22, will be an opportunity to “strengthen the basis of cooperation with these three nations not only in terms of energy, construction and infrastructure, but also in the fields of medicine, science and technologies, hydrogen as well as the environment”, according to a spokesperson for the presidency.