As part of his visit to South Korea, Carlos Del Toro, the Secretary of the United States Navy, personally verified the shipbuilding capabilities of HD Hyundai Heavy Industries, a leading domestic shipbuilding defense company.
On this day, Vice Chairman Chung Ki-sun of HD HHI met with Secretary Carlos Del Toro to introduce the current status and technological capabilities of HD HHI’ naval shipbuilding business and discussed ways to enhance cooperation.
After exploring the main shipyard of HD Hyundai Heavy Industries, renowned for its exceptional scale and status as a global leader, Secretary Carlos Del Toro proceeded to a specialized section dedicated to the construction of naval vessels. At the special shipyard, he inspected major vessels being constructed by HD HHI. These include the Republic of Korea Navy’s next-generation Aegis destroyer, the KDX-III Batch-II ‘Jeongjo the Great,’ which is in the final stages of preparation for delivery this year, and the new FFX Batch-III frigate, ‘Chungnam.’
It has been reported that the United States is considering outsourcing some of its naval ship maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) work overseas due to the saturation of capacity within the mainland.
In anticipation of this, HD Hyundai Heavy Industries last year applied for the Master Ship Repair Agreement (MSRA), which is a qualification for maintaining, repairing, and overhauling U.S. Navy ships, and has reportedly completed an on-site inspection of the yard earlier this year.
In 2022, HD Hyundai Heavy Industries became the first South Korean shipbuilder to venture into the overseas MRO business by establishing a logistics support center in the Philippines.
Furthermore, HD Hyundai Heavy Industries has secured orders for two patrol vessels and six frigates from the Philippines, among others, making it the domestic company with the highest number of foreign naval ship orders to date, totaling 14 vessels.
Meanwhile, HD Hyundai Heavy Industries is playing a crucial role in protecting the territorial waters of the Republic of Korea by constructing all three of the Republic of Korea Navy’s next-generation Aegis destroyers, among a total of over 100 state-of-the-art naval vessels.
 announced that Secretary Carlos Del Toro visited their Ulsan headquarters on Tuesday, February 27th.){kind=link}