HII and HD Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI), two of the world’s leading shipbuilders, signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) 2025 forum to advance the objectives of the shipbuilding dialogue between the United States and Republic of Korea.
HII press release
The signing event was attended by Joo Won-ho, president of the Naval & Special Ship Business Unit at HHI, and Eric Chewning, HII’s executive vice president of maritime systems and corporate strategy.
“This marks the beginning of deeper collaboration between not only our companies, but each of our countries, that will support enduring changes to military and commercial shipbuilding in America,” Chewning said. “We look forward to working collaboratively with HHI, the U.S. and South Korean governments, and with our customers to transform the U.S. shipbuilding industrial base and enable accelerated throughput in our shipyards.”
This MOA builds on previous collaboration between the two companies and expands strategic engagement around four key priorities:
- Strengthen and expand the U.S. shipbuilding industrial base through the exploration of joint investments in distributed shipbuilding and flexible ship construction.
- Pursue strategic teaming opportunities for Navy auxiliary shipbuilding programs leveraging the combined expertise of both companies.
- Collaborate on engineering, research & development and technology implementation best practices in areas such as AI/ML, robotics and automation.
- Strengthen U.S. Navy Indo-Pacific in-theater ship lifecycle support.
Demonstrating the strong pace of collaboration, in early October, the two companies agreed to jointly pursue the U.S. Navy’s next-generation logistics ship (NGLS) design contract. Leveraging HII’s complex shipbuilding experience and HHI’s expertise with proven designs in use with the Royal New Zealand and South Korean navies, the two companies will team to respond to the U.S. Navy’s recent request for proposal (RFP) for the concept design phase of the NGLS program.
“Through joint participation in U.S. Navy procurement programs and investments aimed at establishing ship production bases in the United States, the two nations’ key industries are taking a major step toward deeper strategic collaboration,” HHI President Joo Won-ho said. “We are confident that this partnership will generate powerful synergies by combining Korea’s cutting-edge shipbuilding technologies with the U.S. defense sector’s strong market competitiveness.”
HHI has a strong track record in this field, having delivered its first auxiliary vessel, HMNZS Endeavour, to New Zealand in 1987, followed by the HMNZS Aotearoa in 2020. The company has also supplied the Republic of Korea Navy with three Cheonji-class and one Soyang-class auxiliary ships, demonstrating its proven competitiveness.
Eric Chewning will be delivering a keynote speech on “Strategic Collaboration Between the U.S. and Korea in Shipbuilding” at the Future Tech Forum hosted by HD Hyundai on October 27 as part of the APEC CEO Summit Korea 2025. He is expected to highlight the achievements of the partnership between the two companies and outline the future direction of bilateral cooperation in the shipbuilding sector.
Earlier in April, HHI signed an MOU with HII to share best practices to improve cost efficiency and shorten construction schedules as well as explore opportunities to expand U.S. shipbuilding capacity in support of national security. In early October, executives and technical staff from HHI’s Naval & Special Ship Business Unit visited HII’s Ingalls Shipbuilding yard in Mississippi to strengthen the collaboration and to support future shipbuilding initiatives. In September, HHI began a regular overhaul of the 41,000-ton fleet dry cargo and ammunition ship, USNS Alan Shepard, assigned to the U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet, further strengthening cooperation between HHI and the United States in the shipbuilding sector.