In the end of last year, news that surprised the world came in. There were some reports on newspapers about this international call for building and operating 4 nuclear reactors for the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and this had been quite a topic of the time. Japan, France, U.S.A., and Korea raised hand. Two joint teams of Japan and the United States; Toshiba –Westinghouse and Hitachi - GE. From France, Areva, the strongest in the world (I think Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is in collaboration). Korea was a new member in this Big Business. Toshiba team retired early so there remained only 3 for competition.
And Korea won.
I wonder how shocking this was for Japanese industries. France must have had strong confidence since President Sarkozy was involved actively in campaigning. Naturally the result must have been quite a shock to France. Some articles said that there is a chance for Korea because ‘Korea offers lower price’. But this was not the only reason as you will see in sites which I quote to you below.
In Japanese:
Nikkei, Mainichi,Sankei, Reuter,
Asahi writes about Hitachi on its New Year issue.
On the other hand, let us see what is going on at the field, and how things are reported in Korea. After all it is a big news that calls for attention.
In English:
Reuters, Wall Street Journal, Korea Times
Japanese translation of Korean Newspapers:
The Chosen Nippo (English version is The Chosun Ilbo) offers a lively report in ‘Part1 and Part 2’ (both in Japanese. For Japanese text in PDF, please refer to Japanese site of this posting.)
Chuo Nippo (English version is JoongAng Daily ) has several (Ref.1, 2) (in Japanese) (Ref.3 ) (in English)
Editorial shows that Korea is not just rejoicing over the victory (in Japanese) (Ref.1) (in English)
The point is how to handle and move this kind of National-level highly competitive projects. There is much to learn from Korea.