Invest Korea chief gives star treatment to businesspeople

By Cathy Rose A. Garcia

Staff reporter

Invest Korea, the country's national investment promotion agency, will be rolling out the red carpet for prospective foreign investors, starting in August.

The agency's new ``Red Carpet'' service will provide extra-special treatment for prospective foreign investors from the time they arrive at the airport to the time they leave the country. They will be assisted at the airport to expedite immigration and customs procedures, and will even be chauffeured around the city in a luxury car. An Equus, considered to be the largest and most expensive sedan from Hyundai, was recently purchased by the agency solely for this purpose.

Hank Ahn, head of Invest Korea, is hoping this kind of VIP treatment will make a good impression on foreign businessmen and eventually lead them to make investments in Korea.

``Why did I decide to do this? In my experience of working at the Ministry of Finance, if I can have a visitor be moved by what I have done for him, the person will be willing to do whatever I want,'' he told The Korea Times in an interview.

Ahn was appointed to the post last March, bringing his experience from working at the government and private sector to Invest Korea. He occupied high-level positions at the Ministry of Finance, Korea Center for International Finance, Korea Investment Corp., British American Tobacco Korea and the World Bank.

His task of bringing in foreign investors comes at a time when global economic recovery is still uncertain and foreign direct investment (FDIs) is declining in most countries.

The government is targeting $13 billion in foreign direct investment this year, but only $4.3 billion has been recorded for the first six months.

``I'm certain we can meet the target this year. For the past six months, our achievement was only $4.3 billion, which is slightly lower than last year. But you have to take into account the fact that for the first five months of the year, there was no direction. In June, we achieved half of the $4.3 billion. I'm confident, even though this year is not good for FDI,'' Ahn said.

Aside from introducing the Red Carpet service, Ahn is intensifying investor relations activities overseas and instituting changes at Invest Korea to better fulfill its function at attracting foreign investments and serving foreign investors already in Korea.

To illustrate his point, Ahn once gave a speech to his staff where he started by taking off his shoes and placing them on the podium. ``I told them, we have to put ourselves in foreign investors' shoes... We should be a client-oriented organization,'' he said.

Invest Korea has beefed up its one-stop service, where it assists foreign investors from pre-consultation to aftercare.

Foreign investors, who are holding office at the Invest Korea Plaza in Seocho, southern Seoul, are not only able to rent the facilities at a low price but also the logistics, secretarial and other support is provided. Ahn even moved Invest Korea staff's offices from the neighboring building to the Plaza to make them more easily accessible to the investors.

``Once investors visit the Invest Korea Plaza, every service will be provided for them there. It's a truly one-stop service,'' he said.

Invest Korea has also been trying to diversify its sources of investments, focusing on finance and service sectors and China and the Middle East. The China Desk was launched in May, and it has already attracted several Chinese investors for a leisure park in Korea.

However, Ahn admitted Korea still faces stiff competition from China, the U.S., Brazil and India, which are deemed more attractive by foreign investors because of their bigger markets.

``Korea is still lesser known because we're a relatively small country surrounded by larger neighbors, Japan, China and Russia... But I always tell prospective foreign investors that Korea is a good test bed for products, such as cosmetics and electronics goods. Once they succeed in the Korean market, they can enter the Chinese or Japanese market,'' Ahn said.