-A leading think tank, setting strategies for FDI promotion in Korea

In celebration of the launch of a new service, called “Foreign Investment Policy Center”, Korea Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA: President and CEO, Kwon Pyung-Oh) hosted a signboard-hanging ceremony on Sep 2 at its Seocho-gu head office, Invest KOREA Plaza (IKP). Korea is now witnessing tectonic shifts in the investment environment, fueled mostly by greater uncertainties such as global value chain (GVC) set for a major reshuffle, the latest COVID-19 pandemic, ever intensifying risk of China-US conflicts etc.

Headed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, which enacted the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act (FIRRMA) since last February, major economies have begun to join the recent move to impose tougher barriers to inward FDI.

Aside from the unfavorable climate, there’s rising demand for the state-led policies and research work on FDI to meet the World Trade Organization (WTO)’s commitment to the development of a multilateral framework on Investment Facilitation Agreement, in progress.

Accordingly, KOTRA’s Foreign Investment Policy Center will take the role in a leading think tank, setting strategies for FDI promotion through a set of studies to better understand global FID trends, investment environment home and abroad and FDI policies. An expert group on foreign investment, who’ll be stationed in the center, are planning to appoint industry-academia specialists as non-executive researchers and train them to enhance capabilities.

KOTRA’s CEO said “We’ll spare no efforts to help the center play a pivotal role in studying and setting FDI policies in Korea.”

Source : KOTRA (2020.09.02)