ΆΓ Foreign Investment in Manufacturing Sector Increases Sharply Last Month

 KoreaTimes 2000.09.06

Foreign investment in the manufacturing sector increased by a sharp margin last month as the accumulated total for the year closed in at the $10 billion mark, the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy said yesterday.

According to ministry officials, foreign investments in the month of August were tallied at $1,499 million, 21.8 percent more than in the same month of last year.

The August investments took the accumulated total for the year to $9,366 million, representing an increase of 20.5 percent over the same period of last year, they explained.

Foreign investments appeared to be slowing down in July with an increase of just 2.6 percent but they picked up sharply last month, due to increasing investments in the manufacturing industry.

Including the 341 investments made this month, cases of foreign investments so far this year have reached 2,810, already far surpassing the 2,102 cases for all of last year.

``An encouraging sign is that investments from the United States and Japan increased by sharp margins, perhaps indicating that investors there are getting more and more confident about the Korean market,'' one ministry official said.

On the other hand, investments from the European Union, traditionally strong investors in Korea, dropped by as much as 54.6 percent but still accounted for 20.9 percent of all foreign direct investments.

Looking at other foreign investment trends in the first eight months of this year, investments in manufacturing totaled $4,827 million, up 35.1 percent with $4,536 million going into services.

``Another positive trend in foreign investments in Korea is that there are increasing cases of funds of less than $5 million being channeled in, rather than in the past when they were large-scale investments,'' the official noted.

Sure enough, there were 2,655 investments amounting to less than $5 million and 69 each between $5-10 million and $10-100 million during the January-August period, he added.

jakenho@koreatimes.co.kr