Success Story
KOTRA published 2017 Foreign Investment Success Casebook on July 4. This book is a compilation of interviews with foreign-invested companies in KOTRA's English monthly magazine KOTRA Express for the past three years.
According to the casebook, foreign-invested companies said that Korea was the best place to produce world-class products. They added that Korea was an early-adopter market sensitive to new technology, and a lot of picky consumers made Korea a good test-bed. In addition, Korea had a free trade agreement (FTA) network that covered 73.5% of the world's territory so acted as a bridgehead for exporters to tap into major countries, they said.
In addition, many foreign-invested companies are contributing to the qualitative growth of Korea. Merck Korea, the Korean corporation of Merck in Germany is a company that has innovated beyond simple profit margins in Korea for about 20 years. Merck Korea established the M Lab Collaboration Center in Songdo, and has been enjoying win-win growth with Korean companies while addressing the troubles of Korean biopharmaceutical companies and creating an environment that can accelerate the development and production of new drugs. "It's time for cross-border collaboration between companies and organizations," said Michael Grund, head of Merck Korea.
Foreign-invested companies are playing an important role in social contribution and job creation. Panasonic Korea with a vision of "building a win-win growth society," is carrying out various CSR (corporate social responsibility) activities such as donating digital cameras to youth welfare centers throughout the country.
On the other side, "In terms of numbers, foreign-invested companies account for only 2.1% of all enterprises in Korea but their exports for 21% of Korea’s total exports and 5.8% of Korea’s employment" emphasized Kim Yong-kook, head of Invest KOREA.