South Korea has established its first institutional framework allowing domestic defense firms to obtain NATO standards, aimed at achieving weapons interoperability with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
The Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) said on the 24th that it had enacted guidelines governing the procedures and security management standards under which domestic companies, research institutes and government agencies can request and receive NATO standards.
The move allows Korean firms to obtain NATO standards — which serve as guidelines for the performance of NATO weapons systems — more smoothly and quickly.
NATO standards are criteria applied to securing weapons interoperability with member states and to carrying out certification and testing. The documents include common benchmarks and testing procedures that apply to the performance of individual NATO weapons systems and military supplies such as ammunition.
For non-classified standards, DAPA will obtain and provide them through NATO's online database, while classified standards will be secured and provided after NATO grants disclosure approval. The guidelines also include follow-up management standards, such as security requirements, that recipient organizations must comply with.
Until now, companies faced difficulties in obtaining such information because no procedures or management standards existed for applying for and providing the standards. Firms had to go through government-to-government channels with NATO, or individual exporters had to obtain the information informally through local companies or government agencies.
The guidelines were drawn up based on NATO's security policy, the Korea-NATO security administrative arrangement and domestic security regulations. The new guidelines clearly define the disclosure scope of NATO standards, the application requirements according to classification level, and the procedures for securing and providing them.
The government expects the measure to help diversify export items and destination countries. In particular, while Korea's exports to NATO have been concentrated on finished products, officials expect the guidelines to also support component exports through local plants in countries such as Poland and Romania.
DAPA Commissioner Lee Yong-cheol said the guidelines had "established a foundation to provide NATO standards needed by domestic companies more quickly and systematically," and projected that the measure "will make a practical contribution to expanding entry into the NATO defense market."
