According to Yonhap News,

(SYDNEY = Yonhap News) Hyun Oh-seok, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Strategy and Finance, called on business leaders of global corporations and financial institutions in G20 nations to expand their investment in Korea.

Hyun, who visited Sydney to attend the G20 Finance Minister and Central Bank Governors Meeting, attended a G20-B20 Roundtable meeting on February 21 and expressed his hope that government efforts to improve investment environments and the challenging spirits of companies will stimulate investments.

“We also ask for your interest in Korea,” said Hyun.

B20 is an international summit meeting attended by G20 finance ministers, global corporations and financial institutions to discuss policy issues and relevant suggestions. The meeting was held at the request of Australia, the host of the 2014 G-20 Summit.

Meeting attendants included Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Jacob J. Lew, the United States Secretary of the Treasury, and 30 business leaders of global enterprises and financial institutions including Macquarie Group, UBS and HSBC. Huh Myung-soo, President of GS Engineering & Construction, also participated in the meeting.

“We need to promote PPP projects because there is a variety of restrictions on government spending,” said Hyun. “Governments are also required to improve the inefficient regulatory system, streamline administrative procedures and cope with policy uncertainties to help businesses reduce risks.

“Korea has also successfully carried out a number of PPP projects for the last 20 years, but some of them became a financial burden to the government because their profits were overstated,” said Hyun. “To resolve such problems, the government is developing a new demand forecasting model and trying to set an appropriate level of guaranteed profits.”

Hyun emphasized that governments should build a legal and systematic framework to enhance its knowledge and expertise, and that companies need to demonstrate their challenging spirit and bear risks.

“The Korean government has continued to push forward its efforts to attract investment by taking various deregulation measures,” said Hyun. “It included a negative list system for deregulation, and introduced a limit on the total number of regulations. We will also undertake a thorough regulatory impact analysis to sort out unnecessary regulations.”

The G20 Investment and Infrastructure Working Group (IIWG) is tasked with improving domestic investment environments, enhancing the function of financial intermediaries, promoting the role of Multilateral Development Banks (MDB) and stimulating investments through public-private partnership (PPP) projects.

The Korean government will submit its investment promotion and deregulation policies, which are based on its new three-year economic innovation plan, to the G20 and apply its experience to take a leadership role in the development of the G20’s PPP frameworks.

Meanwhile, business leaders of global corporations said in the meeting that they intend to expand their infrastructure investment, but excessive regulations and complex administrative procedures have a negative impact on their investment decisions. They requested that governments ease regulations and provide a one-stop service to remove bottlenecks that hinder investment in infrastructure.

Business leaders also argued that governments should provide businesses with a certain level of guarantee to diversify various business risks. They cited that uncertainty about future profits is the biggest risk of an investment in infrastructure.

Financial institutions pointed out that tightened regulations in the financial sector after the financial crisis can discourage long-term investments in the global financial market, suggesting that governments should discuss the matter to revitalize investment.