ZCZC
BCN-20
S.KOREA-FOREIGN-INVESTMENT
Foreign direct investment in S.Korea tops 20 bln USD for 5 years
SEOUL, Dec. 9, 2019 (BSS/Xinhua) – Foreign direct investment in South
Korea topped 20 billion U.S. dollars for the fifth straight year through this
year, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said Monday.
As of Dec. 2, foreign direct investment in the country came in at 20.3
billion dollars, exceeding the 20 billion-dollar mark for five years in a
row, the ministry data showed.
The foreign investment declined in double figures in the first and second
quarters on a yearly basis, before turning upward from the third quarter, the
ministry said.
The ministry noted that despite the difficult investment environment,
caused by the global trade feud and the trade spat between South Korea and
Japan, foreign investment in South Korea surpassed 20 billion dollars earlier
than expected due to strong investment in the industrial parts, materials and
equipment sector.
The Seoul-Tokyo trade dispute was triggered by Japan’s tightened control
in July over its export to South Korea of three materials vital to produce
memory chips and display panels that are the mainstay of the South Korean
export.
In August, Japan dropped South Korea off its whitelist of trusted trading
partners that are given preferential export procedure. In response, Seoul
removed Tokyo from its whitelist of trusted export partners.
South Korea believed that Japan’s export curbs came in protest of the
South Korean top court’s rulings that ordered some of Japanese firms to pay
reparations to the South Korean victims who were forced into hard labor
without pay during the 1910-45 Japanese colonization of the Korean Peninsula.
BSS/XINHUA/HR/1430