A new agreement between Washington and Seoul calls for South Korea’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) to share information about its defense procurement procedures and policies with the United States.
The U.S. Commerce Department said the agreement, or memorandum of cooperation, will make it easier for small and midsize U.S. suppliers to register to do business with DAPA. And DAPA said the agreement will help it verify that those companies can deliver the goods and services they promise. 
Myoung-jin Chang, DAPA’s minister, who spoke Nov. 21 at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C., said the agreement will help his government avoid repeating past mistakes, such as when it approved the purchase of sonar equipment from an American firm that later turned out to be a “paper company.” The government also has awarded contracts to U.S. companies that it later found had quality control problems.
According to the Commerce Department, South Korea is among the top 10 export markets for the U.S. defense industry. The country spends about $3.5 billion a year on foreign defense items, the majority of which is from the United States.