Korea’s financial regulator said Tuesday it will hold an investor relations
session in Hong Kong this week in a bid to promote Seoul as a financial hub and
attract foreign financial companies to the capital.
The 2012 Financial
Hub Seoul Conference in Hong Kong, to be hosted jointly with the Seoul
Metropolitan Government on Wednesday, will highlight South Korea’s efforts to
become a leading financial center, the Financial Supervisory Service
said.
Participants will also be briefed on measures taken by South Korean
authorities to keep the country’s financial system stable amid deepening woes
over economic slowdowns in advanced countries.
These measures will
include enhancing the soundness of financial firms, increasing foreign currency
liquidity, diversifying funding sources and maintaining close cooperation with
international regulatory authorities and key market participants, the FSS said.
“The conference will raise the foreign financial firms’ confidence in
South Korea’s financial markets by helping global financial firms better
understand South Korea’s plans to establish a financial hub, and of related
financial incentives,” it said.
The conference will bring together
leading financial figures, including John McCormick, Asia-Pacific chairman of
Royal Bank of Scotland Group; Wong David See Hong, deputy chief executive of
Bank of China; Stephen Lackey, Asia-Pacific chairman of BNY Mellon; and Yoon
Chi-won, Asia-Pacific chief executive of UBS AG.
Approximately 220 other
senior executives and representatives from about 70 global financial
institutions, including Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, BlackRock and the Industrial
and Commercial Bank of China, are expected to attend.
The conference will
be divided into three sessions, which cover the progress and future tasks of
South Korea’s financial hub policy and the merits provided by Seoul for foreign
firms settling in the city.
The sessions will also include an interactive
panel session, which will gather insights from the floor about how to assist
Seoul to become Asia’s leading financial hub.
On the sidelines of the
conference, the Seoul metropolitan government will sign agreements with four
global financial institutions on their entry into Seoul and local government
support for their opening offices in the capital.
The four firms are
Threadneedle Investment and Hermes BPK Partners, both of Britain; China’s Bosera
Asset Management International and the National Bank of Abu Dhabi of the United
Arab Emirates.