Smooth Investment Attraction
Ahn Hee-jung, governor of South Chungcheong Province, wrapped up his nine-day trip to Japan and the United States on June 1 with the attraction of investment from Matheson of the US as the final outcome.
The trip attracted US$146 million in investment from nine companies in Japan, Germany, Israel and the United States.
Governor Ahn signed a US$70 million investment agreement with four Japanese companies and a US$16 million investment agreement with German and Israeli companies. The governor also made a US$60 million investment agreement with three US companies.
These companies will build or expand their production facilities in Cheonan, Asan, Dangjin and Hongseong to produce special gases for production of semiconductor parts and semiconductors, automobile parts, Aerogel (multifunctional new materials), and surface heating elements (heating film). It is expected that these investments will create 460 new jobs and economic effects -- 2.1 trillion won (US$1.8 billion) in sales, 900 billion won (US$810 million) in exports, and 1 trillion won (US$900 million) in import replacement over the next five years.
It is expected that the province will smoothly keep on attracting investments in the second half of this year as the investments by US companies, which had not been made since 2014, resumed and Japanese companies have steadily made additional investments. In particular, the Province attracted investment from an Israeli company for the second time in the history of the province.
The South Chungcheong Province has already accomplished its 2017 goal of “attracting investment from eight companies” early as the local government completed investment agreements with 10 global companies this year.