KAMCO to set up charity foundation

By Kim Tong-hyung

Korea Asset Management Corporation (KAMCO) plans to establish a charity foundation aimed at adding strength and purpose to its corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts, officials from the state-run company said Thursday.

The foundation, which KAMCO expects to launch somewhere around late March, will be aimed at helping low-income families and lower-end financial customers. Although company officials declined to give specific figures, they did expect the foundation to start with a fund of more than 10 billion won (about $9 million).

``We are still in the planning stages. The size of endowment as well as the range and purpose of the foundation’s activities have yet to be decided,’’ said a KAMCO official.

The public asset management company has been upping its corporate social CSR efforts lately.

In November last year, KAMCO inked an agreement with the Korea Securities Depository to cooperate on designing and executing programs to help low-income households in Busan, the southeastern port city where the two organizations will have their headquarters relocated to in 2014 under government plans for balanced regional development.

Months earlier, KAMCO had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with KB Financial Group, which competes with state-run Woori for supremacy in the Korean banking industry, to cooperate on CSR activities.

KAMCO, along with the Bank of Korea and the Industrial Bank of Korea, was named by the Ministry of Strategy and Finance last month as organizations that provide ideal examples for the government’s ``fair society’’ campaign, geared toward improving social mobility.

KAMCO was rated highly for its efforts to support the financially distressed and its public education programs on economics and business.