South Korea will offer various incentives and support to investors that are
designed every specific need of foreign investors coming from different
countries, the government said Thursday.
The move comes as the amount
of new foreign direct investment (FDI) pledged in the first seven months of the
year came to US$8.35 billion, the highest amount ever for the cited period,
according to the Ministry of Knowledge Economy.
The actual amount of
foreign investment made in the January-July period also surged 44 percent from
the same period last year to $5.26 billion, prompting the ministry to raise its
target for new FDI for the whole of 2012 from $13 billion to $15
billion.
The new target, along with government measures to achieve
such an ambitious goal, was reported Thursday at a weekly emergency economic
meeting chaired by President Lee Myung-bak.
"Generally, the investment
market is shrinking throughout the world as the global economy faces a difficult
moment, but the country's investment market is showing an upward trend with a
record amount of investment partly because of its new free trade agreements
(FTAs) that took effect this year," Vice Minister Cho Seok told a press briefing
held Tuesday.
From March 15, when the country's FTA with the United
States came into effect, to the end of July, the amount of newly pledged
investment by U.S. investors amounted to $1.47 billion, up 71.9 percent from the
same period a year earlier, according to the ministry.
To attract more
investment from the U.S. and the European Union, whose separate FTA with South
Korea took effect in 2011, the government will expand its cash support for
foreign investors from the current 30 percent to 40 percent of their
investment.
Investors from China will be subject to a different,
country-specific set of support measures that include an expansion of cities and
regions accessible to Chinese immigrants on investment, the ministry said.
Currently, only four regions, including the southern resort island of Jeju,
allow immigration on investment.
In addition, Chinese investors will
be allowed to bring their own employees from China to work here on their
investment as long as their workers have had more than 10 years of experience
with their companies in China.
Support for Japanese investment will
also be industry-specific as most Japanese investment here is made in the
industrial parts and materials sector.
To encourage more joint
ventures between South Korean and Japanese firms, the government will designate
an additional industrial zone for the parts and materials industry before the
end of the year and double the number of such industrial zones from the current
four to eight by 2015, the ministry said.
"These measures mean we will
speed up the growth of foreign investment and this is a meaningful effort in
that foreign investment leads to more jobs here and a more robust economy," Cho
said.