BEIJING // When the first contingent of South Korean troops sets off for the UAE today, they will be part of a growing number of military personnel dispatched by Seoul worldwide.
The East Asian country has provided soldiers to UN peacekeeping missions worldwide, including supplying medical and engineering troops to Afghanistan from 2002. It also has participated in non-UN missions, including US-led military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and in multi-national anti-piracy manoeuvres off the coast of Somalia.
But the deployment of South Korean soldiers to the UAE represents the first time that Seoul has sent troops to a nation that is not at war or threatening to fall into one. An advance team of 10 troops arrives in the UAE this week, ahead of the main detachment in mid-January.
The willingness of South Korea to dispatch troops overseas and its desire to extend its diplomatic influence follow from decades of rapid economic growth since the armistice that ended the Korean War in 1953, analysts say.
"South Korea, after establishing its credentials in economic development, is seeking to enhance its international status," said Joseph Cheng, a professor of political science at the City University in Hong Kong.
With South Korea's cities playing host to major international events and its firms involved in large-scale construction projects abroad, experts say it is not surprising that the country's military is also expanding its global presence.
According to Mr Cheng, South Korea is following "a very typical pattern" of establishing itself as a developed nation and then making "an increasingly significant contribution to the international community".
"We saw the 1988 Seoul Olympics, followed by the World Expo, membership of the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] and tremendous efforts in holding the G20 summit recently," he said.
Seoul's deployments, he added, continue this trend, which "enhances its international profile and its contribution to the international community".
South Korea's national assembly approved the 130-troop, two-year deployment to the UAE earlier this month. It comes a year after a Korean-led consortium secured the US$20 billion (Dh73.47bn) contract to build four nuclear reactors for the UAE's civilian nuclear-power programme.
South Korea's defence minister, Chang Kwang-il, last month said the South Korean troops, who will be based in Al Ain, would not be involved in guarding the reactor construction sites. Rather, he said, their role was to "better train [UAE] special forces", including taking part in joint drills.
After a series of modestly sized overseas deployments in the 1990s, South Korea's first major foreign military involvement in the new century occurred when it sent about 200 troops to Afghanistan in 2002. They were withdrawn five years later after 23 South Korean Christian missionaries were held hostage and two of them were murdered. Officials insisted the pullout was set to occur before the kidnappings and murders took place.
This year South Korea returned to Afghanistan when the 320-strong Ashena unit was deployed in Parwan province north of Kabul to protect 100 civilian engineers and 40 police from its own provincial reconstruction team who are doing everything from providing medical assistance to building wells.
In Iraq, the commitment has been on a greater scale, with 600 troops, medical and engineering specialists, arriving in the south in April 2003 under the banner of the US-led coalition. The following year the country formed its Zaytun division - olive in Arabic - stationed in the Kurdish region in northern Iraq.
Many in South Korea opposed sending any kind of troops to Iraq, In June 2004, a South Korean civilian translator in the country was kidnapped and subsequently murdered and Seoul refused to cancel a further deployment.
The size of South Korean force peaked at 3,600, making it the third-largest overseas Iraq deployment in 2005. Many were withdrawn during the ensuing two years, with the last leaving in December 2008.
South Korea's third major deployment of the decade, as part of the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, began in mid-2007 and continues, with about 350 troops providing security and medical aid.
With 240 troops in Haiti assisting recovery efforts following the earthquake in January, there are now 643 South Korean UN peacekeepers on 11 missions around the world, up from a little more than 400 a year earlier, according to the government-affiliated Yonhap news agency. Small numbers of troops are based in East Timor, India, Nepal and Pakistan.
This ranks South Korea 32nd of 115 nations contributing UN peacekeepers, up from 39th a year earlier. The rank is likely to rise further, with the government reportedly looking to increase the total of peacekeeping forces to 1,000.
Speaking to Yonhap while in Seoul this month, Anthony Banbury, the UN assistant secretary general for field support, said South Korean troops were "highly professional" and well qualified for various roles such as reconnaissance and medical duties. He urged the country to do more.
"Given the capabilities ... and the size of the armed forces, the size of the economy here, we would hope that in the future, South Korea could increase its contribution to UN peacekeeping," he said.
Mr Banbury said Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in particular, would benefit from having South Korean peacekeepers.
The aim of the deployment to the UAE is "totally different" to previous operations overseas, said Jeong-Min Seo, a professor of Middle East politics at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul.
"To the UAE, it has another goal, to consolidate our comprehensive partnership relations with the UAE, so people should understand these very diverse goals," he said.
While the sending of troops to the UAE - South Korea's second largest oil supplier - generated opposition in Seoul from those who believe the country should keep its soldiers at home when tensions with North Korea are high, Mr Seo said overall the country's military benefits from overseas deployments, especially when peacekeeping.
"If we have real experience and real deployments in many parts of the world, it's important training for our troops," he said.
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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The two riders are among several riders in the UAE to receive the top payment of £10,000 under the Thank You Fund of £16 million (Dh80m), which was announced in conjunction with Deliveroo's £8 billion (Dh40bn) stock market listing earlier this year.
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Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
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Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
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