Invest KOREA

According to Yonhap News,

(SEOUL/SEJONG=Yonhap News) South Korea is hosting a foreign investment week (FIW) event to highlight potential business opportunities in the country, the government said Wednesday.

The three-day event, scheduled to run through Thursday, aims to show the attractiveness of Asia's fourth largest economy for investment, as the country pushes to ratify the free trade agreement (FTA) with China, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said.

The FTA with the world's No. 2 economy will allow the country to become a Northeast Asian business hub, it said.

"Foreign investors can use the country's numerous free economic zones as a forward base to expand into other markets," the ministry said.

The government has been aggressively pushing to improve South Korea's investment environment, offering more incentives and getting rid of more red tape to attract foreign investment into the country.

It stressed that ongoing efforts to push forward labor, financial and education reforms can further enhance the attractiveness of the country as an investment destination.

The ministry said that France's Oberthur Technologies, the world's largest mobile security and safety company, announced it will build a research and development (R&D) center in South Korea.

Company chairman Didier Lamouche said he decided to build the R&D center to take advantage of the country's excellent information and communication technology infrastructure and well trained personnel. The entrepreneur said he aims to work together with a South Korean company to enter other countries.

Organizers for the event said foreign businessmen and reporters will visit local free economic zones and the country's largest industrial plants to better gauge the country's competitiveness. They will also tour the Kaesong Industrial Complex in North Korea, which is home to over 100 South Korean companies.

The ministry, meanwhile, said that besides the FIW, it is working with the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency to hold a job fair that can allow people to find work in foreign-invested companies operating in the country.

The two-day fair, which kicks off on Thursday at the Convention and Exhibition Center in southern Seoul, is expected to attract some 16,000 job seekers. It said some 100 foreign-invested companies, such as Siemens, General Electric and Bosch plan to set up booths at the fair to hire new workers.

yonngong@yna.co.kr

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