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The Ministry of Defense has established three levels of export control standards to protect the core technologies of Korean defense industries from being transferred overseas or falling into hostile hands that threaten global and national security.
Should the controls be put in place early next year, companies would have to seek permission from the ministry before exporting information from a list of 8,023 defense-related technologies.
This move follows a dramatic rise in military and corporate defense technologies, and increasing exports of weapons and defense technology. Defense exports have surpassed US$400 million (W421.4 billion) this year, an all-time high since Korea began exporting defense goods in 1975, when the figure stood at $470,000.
The Defense Ministry said Wednesday that in order to block the transfer of core technologies which require protection in the interests of national security, it had prepared a "defense technology export control list." The ministry said the list would be enforced from early next year, when systematic support policies are enforced.
The list included six groups of defense technologies -- surveillance, command and control, information and electronic warfare, special operations technology, basic war power and precision strike technology -- and brought together 8,023 technologies related to 97 weapons systems.
They are graded in order of importance into Class A, B and C technologies. The 1,278 technologies in Class A will have strict controls on their being made public or the freedom to transfer them, taking into consideration world peace and national stability.
The 3,965 technologies in Class B will have slightly more relaxed controls to protect the national interest. They may be selectively made public or transferred to allies or nations with which Korea has a cooperative relationship defense-wise.
The 2,780 technologies in the latter category may be publicized or transferred to any state with the exception of nations at war or those hostile to Korea.
A Defense Ministry official said, "Within the last couple of years, exports of defense goods and technologies, such as the K-9 mobile artillery, have greatly increased, and there is an urgent need to prepare systematic mechanisms to protect core technologies... We must work to protect and block the transfer of such technologies as they were developed with great investments from the defense budget."
(Jang Il-hyeon, ihjang@chosun.com )
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