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Smart Textronics Research Center Opens in Ansan
    On September 6, the new Smart Textronics Research Center opened at Gyeonggi Technopark in Ansan City, where the provincial government will cooperate with Germany on developing convergence technologies for intelligent electronic textiles.
   Smart textronics, a portmanteau of 'textile' and 'electronics', refers to integrated electronic textiles and wearable electronic equipment.
   The goal of the new research center is to combine the province's textile manufacturing know-how and Germany's original technologies to lead in the future global market for intelligent textronics.
   Earlier, in November 2016, the two parties opened the Dream2Lab2Fab research center in the German city of Aachen, where they have been carrying out joint research projects.
   The new center at Gyeonggi Technopark spans a total of 376 square meters, and employs 20 Korean and 15 German researchers.
   Working with the province, the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology (KITECH), Sungkyunkwan University, the German state of North Rhin Westphalia and RWTH Aachen University, the center plans to develop smart textronics technology, and commercialize it through local small and medium enterprises.
   The province expects the new center to grow by 33.6 percent on average every year, leading the global smart textronics market, which is projected to reach USD 4.7 billion by 2020.

Foreigners own over half of electric, electronics stocks
   Foreign ownership of those stocks traded on the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) market came to 51.2 percent of their total market capitalization as of September 6, the highest among all industrial sectors, according to the data from the Korea Exchange.
   The communication sector came next with 44.8 percent, followed by the steel and metal industry with 37 percent. In contrast, comparable figures were 5 percent for the paper and lumber sector, 8.3 percent for the precision medical equipment industry and 8.4 percent for the nonferrous sector.
   As of the same day, foreign ownership of all shares traded on the main bourse was worth KRW 560 trillion (USD 495 billion), accounting for 37.1 percent of the total market capitalization. Offshore investors owned KRW 27 trillion (USD 23.87 billion) worth of shares traded on the minor KOSDAQ market.
   Foreign ownership of both KOSPI and KOSDAQ shares took up 33.9 percent of the combined value of the two stock markets.

What's Trending
Jeju Shinhwa World to open theme park, G-Dragon cafe
   Jeju Shinhwa World, a resort complex under development on the resort island of Jeju, is gearing up to open a theme park and a K-pop entertainment center.
   The resort project developed by Landing Jeju Development has opened in stages from earlier this year to offer over 300 condominiums and villas, and is set to open a theme park on September 30, said Jeju Free International City Development Center (JDC), a government institution which promotes investment on the island.
   Landing Jeju Development is a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Landing International Development, which mainly invests in resort and entertainment businesses.
   The resort will also have a cafe and a bowling alley designed by BIGBANG leader G-Dragon in YG Town, a K-pop
and leisure complex tentatively named after YG Entertainment, next month.
   The resort, which spans approximately 2.5 million square meters, will gradually open other facilities, including a movie theme park, a casino, a K-pop entertainment center and a water park by 2019.
   A movie theme park partnered by Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation, an American entertainment company, will open in the resort complex in 2019 to feature seven movie zones themed after block buster films, including "The Hunger Games," "The Twilight Saga" and "Now You See Me."
   A total of KRW 1.32 trillion (USD 1.18 billion) in foreign direct investment, mostly from Chinese citizens, has been injected into the project, JDC said, noting it is active ly seeking funds from non-Chinese investors to diversify sources of investment.

Did You Know?
According to A.T. Kearney, South Korea has ranked 18th in the FDI
Confidence Index 2017. The institution asked business leaders in 27 countries the likelihood of them investing in a given country over the next three years. Then the individual answers were aggregated to produce the score for each country.
A.T. Kearney stated that the strong sup ply chain networks in Korea’s electronics and automobile industries make the country a particularly appealing destination for foreign investment.

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Investment News

Smart Textronics Research Center Opens in Ansan

Foreigners own over half of electric, electronics stocks

Jeju Shinhwa World to open theme park, G-Dragon cafe