Invest KOREA

According to Yonhap News, The Ministry of Economy and Finance announced on Sep. 13 that it will host the Global Development Finance Conference at the Four Seasons Hotel Seoul on Sep. 15. At this conference, ministries related to the Official Development Assistance ODA and experts in various fields are to gather and discuss plans for vitalizing development finance in Korea. Development finance refers to developing countries extending loans to companies needing funds for equipment, which is necessary for project development.; therefore, the companies are financed by specialized development banks or loans. First Vice Finance Minister Bang Ki-sun will deliver opening remarks at the event. Also, the ministry said it would jointly run the Korea Climate Change Response Project Promotion Hall at the 'Global Programing Conference' held by the Green Climate Fund GCF. In so doing, it plans to introduce Korea's support project for the developing countries and have meetings with the representatives from the overseas climate change response project. mskwak@yna.co.kr Source Text Copyrights Yonhap News. All Rights Reserved. Reprint or redistribution without permission is prohibited. Source: Yonhap News Sept. 13, 2022 This article was translated from Korean.

According to The Korea Economic Daily Global Edition, Executives and major shareholders of South Korea’s listed companies will be obligated to disclose their share transaction plans at least 30 days in advance amid concerns that the move could hurt free market principles and increase market volatility. The Financial Services Commission FSC said on Monday it will adopt a pre-disclosure system to prevent unfair insider trading and protect minor shareholders from heavy losses when volume trading occurs without their knowledge. The financial regulator said it aims to get the new measure enacted at the National Assembly by year-end. “We know there’s great market interest in this matter. We’ll soon submit our proposal on an amended Capital Market Act to the National Assembly,” the FSC said. Any executive or a major shareholder who owns more than 10% of stocks with voting rights or those who exercise important management rights such as executive appointments or dismissals would be subject to the new regulations. Non-major shareholders will also be required to make public their transaction plans if they plan to buy or sell 1% or more of total outstanding shares, or if the value of their transactions exceeds 5 billion won $3.6 million. The information they must disclose includes the purpose and timing of the trading, volumes and expected prices of shares. Under the current law, listed firms’ executives and major shareholders are required to make public their massive share sales and purchases after transactions are completed. The FSC said on Monday there would be some exceptions to the new mandatory disclosure rules. If any insider information is judged insignificant or non-disclosure is expected to have little market impact, executives and major shareholders will not be required to make their plans public beforehand. Other exceptions include cases where it is difficult to disclose information in advance due to the nature of transactions, such as mergers and acquisitions M&A, inheritance, stock dividends and trading by state pension funds, it said. If the disclosure of a share transaction plan is expected to lead to significant market volatility and cause heavy losses to those shareholders involved, they can change or withdraw their share transaction plans. Insider trading, a transaction of a company's securities by individuals with access to confidential or material non-public information about the company, has often been criticized as taking advantage of such privileged access is considered a breach of the individual's fiduciary duty. Public calls for strengthened rules against unfair insider trading have been growing since Alex Young-joon Ryu, a co-CEO nominee of Kakao Corp., stepped down in January as his earlier disposal of $39 million worth of shares in Kakao’s fintech unit Kakao Pay Corp. met with strong backlash. About a month after Kakao Pay’s market debut, Ryu and seven other executives of the company exercised their stock options and dumped a combined 440,000 shares in after-hours trade. The block sale caused the company's shares to fall significantly, inviting harsh criticism from its labor union and minority shareholders and raising a management ethics controversy. In March, the FSC banned CEOs and executives from selling their shares for at least six months after exercising stock options when the company goes public. According to the Securities and Futures Commission, among the 274 reported cases of unfair trade over the past five years, transactions taking advantage of undisclosed information accounted for 43.4% or 119 cases. The Korea Listed Companies Association, however, said the new law the FSC intends to introduce could be abused, severely hurting large-scale share transactions. “If the purpose of the new rules is to prevent unfair and illegal insider trading, reporting transaction plans only to the Korea Exchange or financial regulators in advance will be sufficient, just like the US and Japan,” said an association official. Investment banking officials said the expected increase in market volatility as a result of pre-disclosure would discourage investors from participating in large-scale block deals. “A pre-disclosure might not protect minor shareholders as much as expected. Potential bad news could trigger short selling, which is as bad or even worse for small investors as they have nothing to do to prevent a sharp share decline,” said an industry official. Source Text Copyrights The Korea Economic Daily Global Edition. All Rights Reserved. Reprint or redistribution without permission is prohibited. Write to Dong-Hun Lee at leedh@hankyung.com In-Soo Nam edited this article Source: The Korea Economic Daily Global Edition Sept. 12, 2022

According to Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea, South Korea’s chip and battery sectors are expected to benefit most from the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework IPEF that focuses on trade, supply chain, clean economy, and fair economy. According to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy on Monday, IPEF participating countries including Korea, the United States, and Japan reached consensus on ministerial statements for each of the four pillars – trade, supply chain, clean economy, and fair economy. The consensus was made at the first official in-person ministerial meeting on Sept. 8 in Los Angeles where Korea’s Trade Minister Ahn Duk-geun attended. The IPEF that counters China amid intensifying rivalry between Washington and Beijing is expected to allow Korea to benefit from the joining of supply chain in advanced areas like chips and batteries as well as in contents exports. But Seoul faces the difficult challenge of persuading Beijing to sustain economic cooperation with the country’s biggest export market. “IPEF is participated by resource-rich countries like Australia and Indonesia and technology powerhouses like the U.S. and Japan,” said Jang Mi-hwa, head of IPEF at Korea’s trade ministry. “Cooperation in supply chain will be possible for the stabilization of supply chain of our key industries like chips and batteries.” Australia accounts for the largest 55 percent of world’s lithium production and is considered a key partner for the stabilization of secondary battery supply chain. IPEF members can exchange reserves at times of emergency, according to foreign media reports. “The 14 nations in the U.S.-led IPEF will consider creating a formal system for sharing semiconductor devices, medical products and other vital supplies during international emergencies,” Nikkei said. Market watchers noted that a system that allows stock exchanges in times of emergency like a currency swap will help diversify and stabilize supply chain in Korean industries. The Korean government will be able to seek stable supply for key minerals in chips and battery sectors through IPEF on top of U.S.-led Mineral Supply Partnership MSP. The ministerial consensus also includes the countries sharing supply chain-related information and establishing a joint response and early warning system. The members aim to share efforts to resolve supply chain bottleneck and expand distribution infrastructure. In trade, new regulations will be made related to digital economy, which will benefit Korea that has seen a surge in content exports like dramas and films over the past several years but in absence of data transfer or standardization in content trade. “It is affirmative that the consensus contains efforts to accelerate digital trade such as cross-border data transfers rather than opening of markets through lowering of tariffs,” said Ahn Chang-yong, director of FTA policy planning at the trade ministry. “Korean companies will be able to advance into ASEAN market.” By Song Min-geun and Lee Eun-joo Copyrights Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea. All Rights Reserved. Source: Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea Sept. 13, 2022

Korea attends 'the 22th China International Fair' as a guest of honor nation from Sept. 8 The biggest exhibition on record......Korea's Industry, investment climate and Busan Expo to be promoted KOTRA President & CEO Yu Jeoung-yeol launches a Korea promotion Hall to join the 22th China International Fair for Investment and Trade CIFIT held in Xiamen, Fujian Province in China for four days starting from Sep. 4. The CIFIT is China's largest investment fair where roughly 90 countries participate to promote the investment climate of individual countries and discuss the investment cooperation. Marking the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the diplomatic relations with China, South Korea was invited as a guest of honor nation to the CIFIT and formed the promotion hall of 420 square meters, the biggest for the longest. The Korea Promotion Hall consists of various sections including the country and municipality investment promotion zone, Busan Expo promotion zone, and Korean product promotion zone. And the hall is expected to serve as a bridge to expand the Korea-China trade and investment. The finest part of the Korea Promotion hall is the investment promotion zone. Korea's 22 municipalities and free economic zones partnered to promote region-specific investment strengths, promising industries, as well as investment support systems. Furthermore, investors can virtually experience the locations of free economic zone, and see Korea from a multi-faceted perspectives. Notably, the Busan Expo promotion zone will be set up to publicize Busan, the candidate city for the 2030 World Expo. The promotion will be coupled with strengths of Korea and Busan , thereby giving an impression that Busan is suitable for holding the Expo to high levels from the Chinese government and enterprises. In the mean time, the Korean Product Promotion Zone will display products from around 50 commodity companies in parallel with online promotion using the Chinese chatting app WeChat, focusing the attention of Chinese buyers and consumers. Jang Sang-hyun, head of the KOTRA's Invest KOREA said, 'For Korea to participate as a guest of honor nation in the CIFIT will be a great opportunity to expand cooperation in bilateral trade and investment," adding, "Marking the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two, we will step up our cooperation with Chinese government and add fresh fuel to the trade-investment vitalization." Source : Invest KOREA 2022.09.08.

Project Description A project to attract high-tech industry enterprises in Daesong Industrial Complex Key Rationale Optimal location – located in the central region of the South Coast which is a new source of national growth engines Industrial Infrastructure – building an industrial belt with Free Economic Zone in Gwangyang Bay(13 industrial complexes, 650 companies, 40,000employees) Excellent transportation and access systems – excellent access from around the country through ports (Gwangyang Port, Hadong Port), railways(Gyeongjeon Line), roads (Namhae Expressway, Daejeon Jinju Expressway), and Sacheon Airport, etc

•Digital English learning market – The digital English learning market is growing at an annual average rate of 17%, but because not a high percentage of users actually finish course, service efficiency is very important. The service is a service that improves the learning effectiveness of users by providing videos that match the age and taste of learners through AI video indexing using more than 5,000 Hollywood movie licenses. Through this, the company has been recognized for its effectiveness externally, such as being selected as an official English learning service supplier for Samsung Electronics' Galaxy Smartphones. •UCC platform for learners and creators – It is a service that enables to learn languages through virtual video conversations with Hollywood,China, and Hallyu stars. The company started marketing China, Japan, and Vietnam as the primary target countries, is in talks with large Japanese insurance companies and publishers, and is also in initial talks with Russia and Laos' largest telecommunications companies.

• Telemedicine service and medical big data market – 250,000 people die each year and $1 trillion is wasted in the U.S. alone, and $3 trillion is wasted worldwide due to the problem of not taking medicine on time. The U.S. telemedicine market was expected to grow 38.2% annually by 2020 and reach 145 trillion won by 2025, but due to COVID-19, it grew 64.3% in 2020 more than twice the size initially expected. The size of big data market related to telemedicine is estimated to reach $90.2 billion in 2026. Even though the need and demand for telemedicine and personalized telemedicine services are rapidly increasing due to COVID-19, there is no medical data platform that actively manages medication problems through wearable devices. • Telemedicine medication management platform for overcoming drug non-compliance – This is the world's first medical device capable of administering drugs to patients via a smartwatch, and the company has applied for all related patents, including cartridge-type microneedles. It developed smart drug management and drug administration platforms to solve drug non-compliance. As it is necessary to take a fixed amount of medicine at a fixed time using a microneedle for effective treatment, interest in drug compliance has increased. This is an innovative product that not only produces useful data for both doctors and patients through related platforms, but also actively solves drug non-compliance problems to realize effective telemedicine and personalized medical care.

• Edutech market and education market outlook – The global edutech market is expected to reach $342 billion in 2025, more than doubling from $153 billion in 2018. With the global education market growing from $6.5 trillion in 2020, to $8.1 trillion in 2025 and $10 trillion in 2030, it is expected to serve as a catalyst for the spread of edutech in the education market. Job recommendation services through diagnostic tests recommend an unnecessarily large number of jobs by simply cross-linking job data for each type. Existing career education and counseling is difficult to continuously observe learners' characteristics and changes of desired career. • Advanced job recommendation system, and big data-based non-face-to-face career path and advancement design – It is an edutech company that provides customized big data-based AI career path and advancement solutions, and it is a platform that enables non-face-to-face customized career path and advancement design. It plans to provide education contents on the platform, and customized job and career roadmap based on the learner's data collected through it, and to comprehensively analyze and manage desired career path changes by stage and career activity data.

• Changes in the food material distribution market – With the development of the restaurant industry, the food material market continues to grow and is estimated to be worth 55 trillion won per year. Restaurants had no choice but to suffer various inconveniences and losses in time, energy, and quality by verbally ordering necessary food materials from wholesalers or visiting food material marts in person, and have been alienated from information on new products, quality, and prices. Therefore, there is an urgent need for a new platform that improves the distortion and irrationality of the current purchase and distribution structure. • Comprehensive food material B2B online platform – The service provided by the company is a comprehensive food material B2B online platform that can be ordered through POS machines as well as APP and Web. In addition to supplying food materials, it provides services such as AI & big data-based information services, and business owner community services. Under the motto of local-based services, the company maximized the convenience of delivery, exchange, and return, and is preparing various services such as purchase cycle management according to purchase patterns and optimal purchase timing analysis according to price prediction.