Chang Young-jin, president of the Korea Trade Insurance Corp., stressed this point in a keynote speech at the "Seoul Economic Daily Future Conference 2026," held Sept. 17 at the Shilla Hotel in Seoul's Jung-gu district. "The projects currently being floated as candidates for U.S. investment can generate more profit through operations and maintenance (O&M) contracts or participation in financing," he said.
He pointed to the Barakah nuclear plant project in the United Arab Emirates, where cumulative construction earnings were negative but follow-on O&M contracts secured a long-term revenue base — an example, he said, of the many projects that look like losses at first but hold hidden value over the medium to long term. Candidates for U.S. investment projects currently under discussion include a liquefied natural gas (LNG) combined-cycle power plant in Encinal, Texas, along with large-scale nuclear plant construction.
Kim Se-jin, head of the trade and industrial policy center at law firm Shin & Kim, said a wider window of opportunity opens when Korean companies expand their production base into the U.S. "If we conduct joint research and development with American companies or gain access to the intellectual property they have built up, we can accumulate experience that would be difficult to obtain in Korea," Kim said. "Rather than looking only at financial returns, we need to think about how to turn our experience in the U.S. into assets for our own industry." Given that the U.S. has accumulated advanced technology over decades and offers a large market and flexible regulation, Korea should design its local production strategy to maximize those advantages, he said. Chang agreed, saying, "Localizing production is unavoidable in any case," and added, "The key is a strategy of keeping core production capabilities in Korea while moving in locally and growing together."
