Sharp Increases in Foreign Investment

Foreign investment in January into Korea this year exceeded $900 million, the highest amount ever recorded for the month of January. The Ministry of Finance and Economy(MOFE) announced on February 5 that direct foreign investment reached $967 million in 130 instances and 7.4 times more than that of the previous year ($130 million in 86 instances).
The lion's share of foreign investment ($678 million) was made in aquisitions of new stocks and equities such as the establishing of factories or participation in capital in-flows.
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) amounted to only 289 million dollars in 19 instances.
The EU invested $505 million in 30 cases which surpassed that of the U.S. at $340 million in 32 cases.
However, these figures overall show a dramatic increase in investment 52.2 percent by the EU and 35.5 percent by the United States.
Meanwhile, MOFE announced that Korea's foreign debt for the end of 1998 was $151.4 billion which was $990 million dollars less than that the previous month of November 1998.
This means that Korea's net foreign debt (foreign debt minus credit) remains at 21.1 billion dollars, 41 percent of last year's figure.