일본의 대한(對韓)투자 현황과 새로운 추세

Abstract

Recent foreign direct investment (FDI) into Korea has been increasing rapidly despite of the serious economic setback caused by the 1997 foreign currency crisis. This trend is a direct response to the fast economic recovery of Korean economy and the amelioration of investment environment as a result of various deregulation measures taken in 1998. Recent rise of the Japanese FDI into Korea is particularly noteworthy, and it is quite contrasting to the still stagnated Japanese FDI into the other East Asian countries which experienced currency crisis.

Japanese FDI into Korea for the past two years is fastly growing especially in the manufacturing sectors such as chemicals, electric/electronic industry, machinery, and metal industry. This phenomenon can be transitional as Japanese companies rush to buy Korean companies of which assets became cheaper after the financial crisis. Japanese FDI into Korea is likely to continue, however, since Korea is attractive to invest as a final consumer market as well as a place to produce intermediate goods for Japanese producers. Japanese manufacturing companies have an incentive to move their redundant production facilities to Korea since Koreas level of technology is more compatible to that of Japanese than other South East Asian countries to pursue their horizontal division of labor strategy.