The ongoing conflicts in regions like Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas have sparked a global surge in defense spending among nations, and South Korea’s LIG Nex1 is capitalizing on this momentum to expand across Africa, Europe, and North America.

According to sources on Wednesday, LIG Nex1 made its inaugural appearance at EDEX 2023, held in Cairo earlier in December 2023, in a bold move to tap an Egyptian defense market currently dominated by weapon systems from Russia and Europe.

LIG Nex1 displayed an array of military hardware at the exhibition, including the AT-1K Raybolt, a Korean man-portable third-generation anti-tank guided missile, KGGB (Korean GPS-guided bomb), and the AESA radar for the FA-50 fighter aircraft. The company actively engaged in sales activities that targeted not only Egypt but neighboring countries as well. EDEX was Egypt’s largest defense expo to date, officially supported by Egypt’s Ministry of Defence and Military Production alongside the Arab Organization for Industrialization.

Egypt holds significant weight in the global arms market, ranking sixth among importers and accounting for 4.5 percent of global arms imports from 2018 to 2022, as per the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). A Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) report highlighted Egypt, along with India and Saudi Arabia, as markets where Korean defense firms should focus their efforts.

Having previously exported the Cheongung II (mid-range surface-to-air missile system) to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for $3.5 billion, LIG Nex1 is now concentrating on consolidating its position in the Middle Eastern defense market.

The company has also been actively pursuing opportunities in the European market, participating in MSPO, Poland’s top-tier exhibition for the defense industry that took place in September 2023, where the company showcased its long-range precision-guided missiles and ground-based weapons.

A third market that LIG Nex1 is on the verge of penetrating is the United States, after it acquired a 60 percent stake in Ghost Robotics, an American company specializing in developing and manufacturing quadruped robots. With a growing trend towards unmanned and automated weapon systems, this move signifies the Korean company’s entry into the defense robotics market. It also opens doors for LIG Nex1 to expand its defense business from precision-guided munitions, surveillance, reconnaissance, and command control to the field of robotics.

Given Ghost Robotics’ ‘Vision 60’ robot’s adoption by the U.S. military, experts anticipate a swift entry of LIG Nex1 into the American market, industry insiders foresee a substantial synergy between LIG Nex1’s expertise in guided missile development and Ghost Robotics’ advanced technologies such as AI and big data.

By Choi Hyun-jae and Minu Kim

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