In an bold bid to ascertain the Korean capital as a number one funding vacation spot, the Seoul Metropolitan Authorities on Thursday launched Make investments Seoul, a devoted metropolis company designed to draw and facilitate company investments.
At an occasion held to have fun the institution of Korea’s first municipality-led establishment centered on funding promotion, officers stated its creation is a response to the rising world competitors to draw overseas capital. The company was formally registered on Oct. 21 and is about to function the management heart for town’s funding initiatives.
The group’s methods embody making funding plans that leverage Seoul’s distinctive strengths, providing tailor-made assist and enterprise networks for firms, selling main improvement websites, and strengthening town’s world profile to draw traders.
Lee Ji-hyung, the inaugural president and CEO of Make investments Seoul, outlined a imaginative and prescient to raise town as “Asia’s main world funding hub.”
“We’ll reorganize the group to offer shut assist all through all the strategy of funding attraction for Seoul’s strategic industries, equivalent to fintech, synthetic intelligence, biotechnology and robotics,” Lee stated. “We’ll entice anchor firms in Seoul’s key strategic industries by linking them to improvement tasks within the metropolis.”
All the basis’s actions “are finally designed to create worth that returns to the way forward for Seoul by bringing in overseas funding, creating jobs and making Seoul a greater place to reside and do enterprise,” he added.
A spotlight of the ceremony was the signing of memorandums of understanding between Make investments Seoul and 4 funding promotion companies from the US, Japan, France and Luxembourg. The agreements are designed to foster funding networking, manage joint conferences and lay the muse for a brand new worldwide partnership ecosystem, town authorities stated. Make investments Seoul additionally plans to ascertain common consultative our bodies with these companions to advance joint funding initiatives.
The launch occasion drew greater than 100 company, together with the Affiliation of American State Workplaces in Korea Chairperson Shin Hee-jung, Enterprise France Seoul Director Matthieu Lefort, Japan Exterior Commerce Group Seoul Director Naoyuki Maekawa and different dignitaries from overseas embassies, worldwide funding boards and chambers of commerce.
Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon, third from proper, celebrates the formal launch of Make investments Seoul at Seoul International Heart in central Seoul, Thursday. Yonhap
Mayor Oh Se-hoon stated his objective extends past making Seoul a great metropolis for funding. “We would like Seoul to develop into a metropolis that individuals aspire to put money into,” Oh stated.
“To create an setting the place funding is free and innovation is steady is the important thing to enhancing Seoul’s world competitiveness,” he added. “By providing one-stop assist for all the funding course of ― from an investing agency’s first session to settlement and enlargement ― we’ll assist remodel Seoul into a worldwide funding hub the place companies will come and folks, capital and expertise will collect and develop.”
The founding of the company follows a $57 million funding deal just lately signed with French quantum computing firm Quandela, which plans to arrange a expertise improvement heart in Seoul. This deal marks town’s second main quantum funding following final month’s partnership with Pasqal, one other French quantum computing agency. Metropolis officers stated these achievements are the proof of town authorities’s efforts to develop a thriving quantum trade ecosystem and a dedication to supporting joint analysis and improvement networks, expertise improvement, and quantum-focused companies.
Make investments Korea additionally stated it should work with the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Power to increase incentives for worldwide traders.
