Foreign Service
According to Daejeon City representatives on Oct. 12, the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Resources recently designated IDS-K, which moved into the Global R&D Center of Daejeon City, as the first Service-Type Foreign Investment Zone. The designation will take off 50 percent of the company’s rent for up to five years thanks to support from the central government and Daejeon City.
That is to say, the central government and Daejeon City will pay 60 percent and 40 percent of the 50 percent of the IDS-K’s rent, each. IDS-K is the Korean corporation of Ingegneria Dei Sistemi S.p.A. (IDS), a global military hardware producer with which Kwon Seon-taek, mayor of Daejeon, signed an investment agreement with when Kwon paid a visit to its headquarters in Pisa, Italy in March.
Last month, the Italian company opened an office in the Global R&D Center. Now they are preparing for their full-scale business. IDS-K is planning to build a model test center for the stealth engineering business, the RCS, EMI, EMC measurement business, research on antenna radome, and new materials by 2017. The company is also planning to employ 22 specialists with master’s or doctorate degrees.
At the moment, foreign investment zones are classified into three kinds – complex, individual, and service types. ISD-K became the first company designated as a service-type foreign investment zone. That is to say, the place designated as a foreign investment zone this time means a space for IDS-K in the center.
A service-type foreign investment zone is a system that designates a foreign investment zone in areas and buildings in and out of industrial complexes. As Daejeon City misses any complex-type foreign investment zones, the city has had difficulties enticing foreign research organizations and centers, even though Daejeon, Korea’s biggest R&D region, is home to 30 government-run research bodies and about 400 research centers of companies.
Daejeon City predicts that the designation will lay the foundation for attracting high-value-added research and development and foreign R&D centers that can contribute to the local economy. “The designation of IDS-K as a service-type foreign investment zone is quite meaningful in that the designation is the first case to utilize an incentive program of the central government for foreign investment inducement,” mayor Kwon said. “We are planning to actively utilize service-type foreign investment zones for the purpose of attracting foreign research organizations and research center companies into the Global Science Business Belt, along with a planned complex-type foreign investment zone.”
On the other hand, it was known that IDS-K is preparing to hold the opening ceremony of the Daejeon office with the participation of the president of IDS and the Italian vice minister of national defense in Nov. Moreover, Daejeon is discussing tax breaks for the company with the Ministry of Planning and Finance.