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Conglomerate pilots South Korea's fledgling aerospace industry
Samsung Aerospace Industries stole the limelight at South Korea's debut air show in Seoul last October, when it displayed the country's first domestically-made advanced jet fighter - a Lockheed Martin F16.
Samsung Aerospace, a unit of the giant Samsung Corp, is the prime contractor, under a licensing and technical support agreement with US-based Lockheed Martin, for the US$5 billion (South) Korean Fighter Programme (KFP) to build F-16s for the country's defence department. A Samsung official says an impending merger between Lockheed and Boeing is unlikely to affect the arrangement.
Samsung is responsible for the assembly of the aircraft using parts built by the company and other large South Korean firms, including Daewoo Heavy Industries, Hyundai Precision and Korean Air.
Samsung is committed to begin delivery of 120 F-16s to the South Korean military by 1999. About 70% of the airframe and up to 50% of the avionics will be manufactured in South Korea, with the remainder sourced from overseas suppliers. Local companies will be responsible for building about 43% of the Pratt & Whitney engines used to power these aircraft. New stage of evolution
South Korea's aviation industry has evolved from maintenance work to domestic coproduction of aircraft. The next stage design and development - has already taken off. A Samsung-led consortium of 14 South Korean companies - Korean Commercial Aircraft Development (KCAD) -is marketing a 100-seat regional aircraft, the `Asian Express'.
The success of this project will underpin Samsung's bid to gain international recognition as a serious competitor on the world market, because safety requirement tests for civilian aircrafts are much higher and more stringent than those for fighter jets.
According to Hyun Min Hong, general manager for strategic planning at Samsung's headquarters in Seoul, the company was negotiating with China to co-develop the...