hankyoreh

South Korea's Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) on September 17 announced its so-called "10-10-10" plan, which aims to extend 10 core technologies into weapons production, localize the manufacture of 10 weapons systems used domestically, and make South Korea into one of the world's top 10 arms exporters by 2022.

Since October last year, the DAPA was engaged in joint research and verification with the state-run Agency for Defense Development (ADD) to map out the plan.

Under the plan, the DAPA plans to maintain a 20-percent growth rate in the annual budget for defense research and development projects by 2010 as part of its efforts to fulfill the first two goals of the 10-10-10 plan. Such a boost is expected to lead to an increase in the portion of the budget devoted to research and development out of the total defense budget to 10 percent by 2020 from the current 4.7 percent.

In addition, the plan calls for the DAPA to possess its own technology to develop weapons and their core systems by cooperating with the ADD, local defense companies, private researchers, and small and medium-sized enterprises.

The core technologies and weapons systems in the plan have not yet been decided upon. "We will designate the 10 core technologies and 10 weapons systems by gathering opinions from military officials by the end of this year," said an official at the DAPA, asking to remain anonymous based on the sensitivity of the issue.

When it comes to weapons exports, South Korea ranks 17th in the world. South Korea exported US$261.89 million worth of arms in 2005, compared with $419 million in 2004 and $240.61 million in 2003. Under the DAPA's plan, South Korea aims to increase arms exports to $1 billion by 2011 and $2 billion by 2022, with the aim of becoming one of the world's top 10 arms exporters.

To meet this target, the DAPA said it plans to map out a strategy to select specific items to develop and support, as well as to push for joint overseas marketing with the government, the military, developers, and companies. In addition, the DAPA plans to strengthen its organization in terms of arms exports, as well as to offer financial assistance packages for exporters.