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ven as Korean automaker Kia Motors invests US$1.2 billion in a west Georgia plant, the South Korean government plans to attract $11 billion, or about 10 times that amount, in foreign direct investment this year. It attracted about $3 billion in 2004. South Korea is determined to achieve 5 percent economic growth and create 400,000 new jobs, according to Commerce Minister Chung Ske-kyun, who met with a group of foreign business executives in Seoul on March 20. The minister is ramping up efforts to lure companies to the northeast Asian country as competition from other Pacific Rim markets intensifies.
   "Foreign investment is critical in so-called strategic growth industries," the minister told the group, adding that Korea is taking steps to make it easier to invest there. The government is lowering eligibility for cash incentives to build research and development centers from a minimum of $5 million to a minimum of $1 million to $3 million. It also is funding the establishment of new foreign investment zones in underdeveloped parts of the country.
   Those investing in Korea on a smaller scale than Rolls Royce or Prudential – both of which had regional executives at the meeting with the commerce minister – are the target market for the Foreign Enterprise Business Incubation Center at Invest Korea Plaza in Seoul's Seocho district, which will open in fall 2006. The facility will offer a range of business-support services including office and conference space, state-of-the-art telecommunication, access to investor services and educational resources for children.

   Investment in Korea is likely to increase as a free trade agreement with the United States is finalized in the foreseeable future – the process was formally launched in Washington, D.C., on February 2, 2006 – and as South Korea takes steps to meet its World Trade Organization commitments. One such commitment is to open fully its construction, engineering and project management market to foreign investment. Construction management skills are largely in place in South Korea. But project management has a ways to go.
   "Project management encompasses a whole range of other areas such as technical, legal, financial and commercial skills," says Soo-Hong Kim, president of AMEC Korea. AMEC is an international infrastructure and project management services company with a presence in more than 40 countries. "The effective employment of these skills will help encourage Western investment by giving investors confidence that the project will be delivered."
   One such project now under way is the 6.5-mile (10.5-km.) Incheon Grand Bridge linking the new Incheon International Airport on Yongjong

Invest Korea The American Chamber of Commerce in Korea

Island with Songdo City in the Incheon Free Economic Zone (IFEZ). When complete in 2009, the bridge will be Korea's longest and one of the largest cable-stayed bridges in the world. "The IFEZ is South Korea's method of opening up, step by step, its economy after being closed to foreign investment [in project management]," says Soo-Hong. "It has seen the success of other countries, such as Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia, and wants to emulate it, but in a controlled way."
   Located near Seoul, Incheon already is a bustling manufacturing and distribution center seeing substantial investment from companies such as Celltrion, a joint venture between San Francisco-based VaxGen and a group of South Korean investors. VaxGen makes vaccines for use against anthrax, smallpox and meningitis B. Celltrion recently opened a biopharmaceutical plant in the new technology park in Incheon's Songdo New City. The plant will conduct contract manufacturing work for such pharmaceutical companies as Bristol-Myers Squibb.