The Manufacturing Industry Investment Promotion Team is one of the three teams that make up Invest KOREA’s Investment Promotion Department. It provides comprehensive services facilitating foreign investment in key industries, including auto parts and materials, information technology (IT) and biomedical supplies.
Our team provides support through each stage of the investment process, helping with everything from market research collection for potential investors and global corporations to consultations on legal matters. Our experts provide constant guidance and work hard to explain Korea’s current competitive circumstances, industry culture and the changes taking place. They also work closely with KOTRA’s 119 overseas branches, called Korea Business Centers, across the globe to provide potential investors with valuable industry information.
Our experts include project managers (PMs) who are committed to offering customized support for each of their investment projects. They assist investors from the earliest stages of investment to project completion. They look for land on which to build factories, provide information on laws, communicate with local government officials, research legal incentives and much more.
They support potential investors visiting Korea as well, working with other Invest KOREA teams to provide services like the Red Carpet Service, which offers conveniences including airport pickups and hotel accommodations. Our team also dispatches delegations known as Task Force Teams (TFT) and holds overseas investor relations (IR) events for potential investors. These delegations, which consist of PMs, local government
officials and Korean market experts, go abroad to meet investors, provide information and promote Korea. Our team preschedules one-on-one meetings and investment consultations between global companies and Korean counterparts to maximize business synergy during these events. We plan about 20 to 30 IR/TFT projects in the United States, Europe, Japan and emerging markets including China a year.
To name one of our most important annual events — the Global Alliance Project Series (GAPS) is designed to facilitate the collaboration of global enterprises with technology-based partners. Established on the basic tenets of the open innovation model, GAPS centers on investment promotion, joint research and development (R&D) and creating a lasting network of knowledge and innovation. GAPS partners span a variety of fields, including bio-pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, IT, electronic materials and green technology. In 2012, Cisco Systems, Inc. was searching for an Asian partner and took part in GAPS. Our team introduced Cisco Systems to potential domestic partners and provided assistance in other key ways. The company eventually decided to invest USD 31 million to construct an R&D center in Songdo, Incheon called the Global Center of Excellence. We continue to support them and maintain a cooperative relationship.
Outside of GAPS, another company we have supported is Solvay, a multinational chemical group that grossed USD 9.5 billion in 2010. It established an R&D center and their global headquarters for special chemistry in Korea in 2011, and our team played a key role in supporting the project from the decision-making to the final incentive-application stage.
Our team has also supported BASF, the world’s largest chemical company and one that is establishing a production base in Yeosu for high-performance plastics (polyethersulfone) by 2014. Invest KOREA led the negotiations for the project and helped the city of Yeosu win the bid. More recently, BASF also decided to move its Asia-Pacific headquarters for electronic chemical materials to Seoul this year.
The new Park administration has launched a creative economy initiative that prioritizes human creativity and aims to generate new added value and more jobs through combining industries and culture. As promoting the investment of foreign assets and technologies will be an instrumental part of this, the Manufacturing Industry Investment Promotion Team, along with the rest of Invest KOREA, will play a key role in contributing to the achievement of this nation-wide goal.
Source : Invest Korea
