Revival of Chinese Investment

Chinese investors have strategized to solidify their positions in the global Industry 4.0 by directly investing in Korea's future industries including bio startups.
Chinese investors have strategized to solidify their positions in the global Industry 4.0 by directly investing in Korea's future industries including bio startups.

 

Some analysis says that Korea’s future visions for the 4th industry attract to Korea. Chinese investors have strategized to solidify their positions in the global 4.0 Industry by directly investing in Korea's future industries such as the bio, cultural contents, and information technology (IT) industries.

According to the Chinese and Korean financial investment industries on December 7, it was unlisted Korean bio companies that KKR, a global private equity firm, and affiliates of China’s CITIC Securities want to invest in most. This investment meeting aims at investing up to 50 billion won per company and 500 billion won in 20 small and medium-sized enterprises in Seoul and helping them to tap into the Chinese market.

"We hope that Korea's high-tech bio companies will enter China. China's policy, if investment is made," said a spokesperson for Spider Beijing Information Advisory, a Chinese investment advisory firm, which organized the investment meeting with Seoul City. “It is a policy of the Chinese government.”

Shenzhen City of China which is leading the 4th industry in China is nurturing high-tech industries such as biotechnology and IT by intensively investing in them.

Korean biotech companies already drew much attention from foreign investors including Chinese investors. KKR recognize the strong profitability of the healthcare business ahead of other companies by taking over the healthcare business unit from Panasonic in 2013 for US$1.67 billion.

KKR raised US$9.3 billion in funds and is being considered a candidate to acquire CJ Healthcare with its corporate value hitting one trillion won (US$900 million).

Chinese investors are also interested in Korea's cultural contents industry and IT. Especially, as the Korean Cultural Wave in China has revived with the worldwide popularity of K-Pop, the Chinese-Korean joint film production industry has become the hottest ticket among Chinese investors. Among Korean cultural contents companies that submitted application forms to receive investment from Chinese investors this time, a company is making a film starring members of the Korean idol group EXO. The BTS is also enjoying popularity around the world so cultural contents involving the BTS are known to be a hot investment target among Chinese investors.

As big Chinese investors have decided to invest two trillion won (US$1.8 billion) in Korea’s small and medium-sized bio, cultural contents and IT enterprises next year, it is expected to bring a halt to a long investment drought for Korean companies that have failed to attract investment so suffered from a lack of investment up to now. China’s foreign direct investment in Korea which dropped 60.5% year on year at the end of last month is also expected to recover to the previous year's level.

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