• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.231-248
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• 2014

The role of the foreign direct investment is very crucial for the regional economic growth nowadays. The inward FDI in Korea has been increased since the Act of foreigner investment promotion in 1998. The municipal and national government have designated the special industrial zones and supported the diverse incentives for the foreign investment companies. The service sector had a large share of inward FDI. However, manufacturing sector overtook the service sector as the largest FDI in 2009. This study focuses on the greenfield manufacturing FDI, which was established from 1999 to 2012 in Korea. In order to find out the impacts of low-priced industrial electricity and loose environmental regulations on choosing Korea, this paper did in-depth interviews with MOTIE, Korea industrial complex, Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency, some FDI companies. Investment incentives such as low price of domestic industrial electricity strongly affect why manufacturing FDI companies choose Korea to invest. The Korean government has also acknowledges that low-price policy can internationally compete to attract FDI. There is a possibility that FDI energy-guzzling industrial companies may choose for Korea to use the low-priced electricity, raising the issue of supply-demand of electricity of Korea in the future.

• International Area Studies Review
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.145-161
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• 2009

Applying the shift-share analysis, this paper decomposes FDI inflow into Korea for the period of 2003-2006. The paper finds that Korea has been lagging behind the world average in absorbing inward FDI, thereby recording negative aggregate industry-mix effects and negative aggregate competitive effects as well. However, the following industries have recorded positive competitive effect: electrical and electronic equipment, motor vehicles and other transport equipment, hotels and restaurants, transport, storage and communications, finance, and business services. In a nutshell, Korea is revealed to have competitive advantage in absorbing inward FDI in a few manufacturing industries and most of service industries. Government policies should accordingly be focused on these industries to encourage more inward FDIs.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.119-134
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• 2022

A new protectionism caused by the US-China competition and a following new Cold War would have a negative impact on global FDI. In this time, this study researched the effects of the long lasting global openness and liberalization on Korea's Inward FDI. 1,387 foreign invested companies in Korea were analyzed. The results are summarized as follows. First, Korea's FDI has been expanded under the environment of globalization. The IFDI amount and share in GDP increased. Seven countries out of the world top 10 were listed in Korea' the top 10. However, the share of the US and Japan's FDI in Korea's IFDI decreased. Second, non-manufacturing industry became prevalent in Korea's IFDI. Considering it's local market-oriented characteristics, the biggest investment motivation by global companies was Korean market pursuit. The US was more local market-oriented than Japan. Third, cross-border M&A, which became active in developed countries since 1980s, also kicked off in Korea from late 1990s. Global companies managed foreign-invested companies in Korea with shares close to wholly owned. The US had higher share ratios than Japan. The implications by this research are as follows. First, looming protectionism by a New Cold War would negatively affect Korea's IFDI through the adverse function of globalization. Second, Korea's IFDI has been converted to a market pursuit type being mainly leaded by non-manufacturing industry. Since GDP is the largest FDI motive in this type of FDI, the key policy for IFDI promotion is lying in the expansion of domestic market rather than deregulation.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.391-408
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• 2009

This study first designates the factors affecting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in order to analyze the FDI in Korea, and calculates the Korean FDI index by using various designated variables and by applying Factor Analysis Technique. In addition, it attempts to understand the influence wielded by the foreign investment variables of foreign multinationals on FDI in Korea, by setting to analyze & verify Environmental Factors and the overall model based on FDI in Korea. Through an emprical analysis of USA, Japan, EU, China, as our hypothesis, we could verify that the positive effects(+) among the decisive factors of FDI in Korea include the market size, the mean earning rate of domestic manufacturing industries, and the marketing capacities of foreign corporations, while the negative effects(-) include the ratio of taxation on domestic manufacturing industries. Other FDI factors have various effects on each, so some factors show the same effects as the hypothesis while others show separate effects. In addition, the only nation for which the effects of FDI factors in Korea coincide with the hypothesis completely is the USA, while other nations (such as Japan, EU, China) have some effects that conform to the hypothesis, but other effects do not accord with it.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.513-537
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• 2010

According to the "FDI-as-market-discipline" hypothesis, inward FDI acts as a mechanism of change in market structure affecting innovative activities of domestic firms. We used panel KIS data for testing this hypothesis. Binary probit estimation shows that, in contrast to the German case of Bertschek (1995), FDI is insignificant in Korean case for explaining product innovation. 1his result maybe comes from the fact that the industries in Korea are more monopolistic or oligopolistic than those of Germany. Using panel data, we tried random parameter estimation using matrix weighted average of GLS and OLS. The result shows different estimates from cross-section outcome and panel estimation with parameter homogeneity, so we can infer large parameter heterogeneity across firms. But, interpretation for FDI variable is similar across panel and cross-section estimation.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.163-171
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• 2020

The study aims to examine the effects of inward every presence of foreign investment, import, and real exchange rate shocks on export performance in Vietnam. This study employs a time-series sample dataset in the period of 2009 - 2018. All data are collected from the General Statistics Office of Ministry of Planning and Investment in Vietnam, World Development Indicator and Ministry of Finance, State Bank of Vietnam. This study employs the Augmented Dickey-Fuller test and the vector error correction model with the analysis of cointegration. The results demonstrate that a higher value of import significantly accelerates export performance in the short run, but insignificantly generates in the long run. When the volume of registered foreign investment goes up, the export performance will predominantly decrease in the both short run and long run. Historically, countries worldwide are more likely to devaluate their currencies in order to support export performance. According to the study, the exchange rate volatility has an effect on the external trade in the long run but no effect in the short run. Finally, Vietnam's export performance converges on its long-run equilibrium by roughly 6.3% with the speed adjustment via a combination of import, every presence of foreign investment, and real exchange rate fluctuations.

• Industry Promotion Research
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.69-81
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• 2021

Pakistan is a South Asian auspicious developing country. Based on the corruption perception index report 2020 by transparency international, Pakistan has ranked 124 with total scores of 31 globally and 188 ranks with a score of -2.25 in terms of political stability ranging from 0 (lowest) to 100 (highest). More crucially, the inflow of foreign direct investment toward Pakistan has declined between 2008 and 2019. Though political instability and government corruption have both positive and negative linear relationships with foreign direct investment, we tested the moderating impact of government corruption between political instability and inward foreign direct investment over time. We also tested the relationship between political instability and inward foreign direct investment in different phases of political regimes in the same country. Our results suggested that authoritarian regimes attracted more inward foreign direct investment than that during democratic periods of government. Furthermore, we found that there was low inward foreign direct investment when government corruption was high in the country. However, government corruption weakened the positive relationship between political instability and inward foreign direct investment (FDI).

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.44 no.6
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• pp.217-230
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• 2019

This study investigates the impacts of international trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) on income distribution both nationally as well as provincially in Vietnam. This study uses panel data of 63 provinces in Vietnam for the period of 2008-2016 and a time series dataset from 1992 to 2016. We found the following results. First, the income distribution is significantly affected by per capita income. When we consider the Kuznets hypothesis, the intra-provincial income inequality of Vietnam's 63 provinces follows a regular U-shaped relationship. In contrast, the income distribution in Vietnam exhibits an inverted U-shaped relationship between the Gini coefficient and per capita income. Second, the inward FDI tends to reduce income gaps in each province through the employment of predominantly low-skilled workers. FDI, however, seems to increase income inequality throughout Vietnam. This result is potentially due to the strong concentration of FDI into a very few areas. Third, the effect of trade openness exhibits a decrease in inequality both within each province and in the whole country of Vietnam.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.173-183
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• 2020

The paper investigates the determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Vietnam in 2000-2019 period. This study uses difference Generalized Methods of Moments (GMM) and Pooled Mean Group (PMG) to analyse panel data officially provided by General Statistical Office of Vietnam. The results show that market size impacts positively significant on FDI attraction: 1% -1.45% (PMG) and 1% -1.25% (GMM). Besides, some other factors have positive influences as labor force, macroeconomic policy, macroeconomic stability and skilled labor. Meantime, the trade openness negatively affects FDI inflows in the short-term, while not being statistically significant in the long-term. Moreover, economic shocks often have a negative impact on FDI inflows. The findings of this study lead to the following recommendations. First, authorities should pay special attention to encourage economic growth rate in Vietnam to expand market size because this is the first priority of foreign investors. Second, authorities need to continue increasing the rate of skilled labor, especially highly qualified management force, engineers and well-skilled workers. Third, the authorities should adjust trade openness to boost the role of its determinant in attracting FDI inflows. Fourth, macroeconomic stability needs to be governed by international standards in order to secure the belief of foreign investors in the long-term.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.24 no.8
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• pp.63-80
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• 2020

Purpose - Recent empirical studies have shown that FDI is expected to be strongly associated with democratic governance, political stability, and sound macroeconomic conditions of the host country. We attempt to take it a step further to see if governments implement a major change in institutional characteristics, will the institutional reform toward better governance have a substantive effect in enhancing FDI inflows. This paper thus aims to analyze the importance of good governance as an important factor in the attractiveness of FDI inflows in ASEAN+3 (Korea, China, Japan) countries. Design/methodology - To determine the effects of good governance on FDI inflows across ASEAN+3 countries recorded between 1996-2018, the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) are used to investigate the impact of good governance on FDI inflows. The model has been estimated by using fixed effects to show the robustness of the results. Findings - Our main findings can be summarized as follows: Political Stability, Rule of Law, and Voice and Accountability have a statistically significant impact on the inflow of FDI in the ASEAN+3 Countries, especially for Korean economy. Moreover, GDP growth continue to exert their positive influence. However, Regulatory Quality, Government Effectiveness and Control of Corruption, though equally important, are insignificant to attract FDI inflows. The key finding is that good governance has a significant impact on inward FDI in the ASEAN+3 countries. Originality/value - Existing studies focus on the impact of political factors on FDI across countries. This paper instead attempts to investigate which type of good governance is the most important in promoting FDI inflows across ASEAN+3 countries, which is essential for multinationals to consider when choosing a foreign site as a possible FDI destination.