Republic of Korea (ROK) held a launching ceremony for a 3,000-ton indigenous submarine. The ceremony for the diesel-electric air-independent propulsion submarine, took place at the Okpo Shipyard of Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering Co. on the southern island of Geoje.

The Dosan Ahn Chang-ho submarine is the Navy's first mid-class submarine. While the country's existing 1,200-ton and 1,800-ton submarines were built with technological assistance from German defence firms, the latest submarine has been domestically designed, and 76 percent of its component parts were made by Korean businesses.

The new 83.3-meter-long, 9.6-meter-wide submarine capable of carrying 50 crewmembers is equipped with six vertical launching tubes capable of firing submarine-to-ground ballistic missiles and can operate underwater for 20 days without surfacing, officials explained.

It is set to be delivered to the Navy in December 2020 after tests. Its operational deployment is slated for January 2022. It costs around 1 trillion won per unit.