New FDI to S. Korea hits new high in H1

The amount of foreign direct investment (FDI) freshly promised to South Korea surged to a new six-month high in the first half of the year on the back of a sharp rise in investment from China, with the amount of actual investment arriving here also climbing to a record high, the government said recently.

As of June 24, new FDI pledged to the country amounted to US$10.07 billion, up 39.7 percent from the first half of 2013, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.

The actual amount that arrived here over the cited period also spiked 57 percent on-year to $6.77 billion.

"A large growth in the amount reported may have meant little if the amount that arrived here had been low, but the amount of arriving investment also reached a record high," Kwon Pyung-oh, head of the ministry's trade and investment bureau, said.

"I believe the increase in FDI was possible despite various negative factors, such as the North Korea risk, as foreign investors and companies have a strong faith in the fundamentals of the South Korean economy," he added.

The rise in FDI was attributed to a large increase in investment from China and other Chinese-speaking countries, including Singapore and Taiwan, which together pledged $2.38 billion in fresh investment to South Korea, up more than sevenfold from a year earlier.

Kwon said the increase in FDI from China partly reflected China's growing interest in food safety and South Korea's cultural contents on the back of widespread South Korean pop culture.