By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter

Korea plans to provide permanent residency cards to ethnic Korean investors who don't reside in Korea from next year.

The Ministry of Justice said Wednesday that ethnic Koreans who own South Korean property worth more than 500 million won or pay more than 500,000 won in property taxes will get the F-5 visas for permanent residency from next week.

Under the current law, permanent residential visas are available for foreigners with investments totaling a minimum $2 million here and who employ five Korean citizens or more.

The visas will also be given to ethnic Koreans working at domestic companies who earn more than twice the Korea Gross National Product (GNP), about $18,000, or those who have been engaged in agricultural, fishing or manufacturing industries with an income of more than $18,000.

The ministry has revised the related rules to attract more ethnic Koreans to invest money and land jobs here in the wake of decreasing human resources due to the low birthrate and aging society.

"As we have applied the same strict visa regulations on ethnic Koreans as other foreigners, only 500 have gained residential visas in the past seven years," said a ministry official.

Foreigners with an F-5 visa can stay here for as long as they wish to unless they are convicted of criminal activities. They are also entitled to vote in provincial assembly elections.

In addition regulations on foreign professionals in specified fields will be eased so that they can come to the country more easily. Korea has about 40,000 foreigners who are grouped as professionals or skilled workers among the total 540,000 non-Korean workers.

The Cabinet has already endorsed the revision of the immigration law for foreign investors in order to boost investment and to attract more talented foreign nationals.

The government also plans to give privileged visa status to those who purchase real estate in designated areas such as the special economic zone on Jeju Island or live in those areas for five years or more to boost industries here.

In the meantime, the government will introduce an online visa-issuance system from next February for foreign job seekers. Those applying for professorships, research, engineering, information technology and English teaching positions can benefit from the system at www.visa.go.kr.

With the new system, foreigners won't need to visit Korean embassies abroad or immigration offices and Korean companies will be able to easily find foreign job seekers.

kswho@koreatimes.co.kr