May Foreign Investment Shows Slump Persists

Foreign investment in Korea was down 26.6 percent in May from a year ago, the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy said Tuesday. Overseas investors plowed $598 million into the nation's economy, compared with $815 million in the identical month of 2000.

The monthly figure was part of an up-and-down trend, beating April's $371 million, which was a steep decline from the March figure of $800.

The amount of foreign investment for this year remained below last year's corresponding numbers for a fifth straight month. January's $3.4 billion (compared with $1.68 billion for January 2000) included the sale of a 15 percent stake in SK Telecom for $3 billion. Discussions between SK and NTT DoCoMo Inc. are ongoing. If the purchase is excluded, foreign investment for the January-May period this year is nearly 45 percent lower than that for the same period last year.

The 450 cases of foreign investment this year was the highest ever, indicating the average size of the investments was smaller, the ministry said. There were no cases that brought in $100 million or more. There were two cases last May.

"We believe it will be some time before foreign investment into the country turns around," the commerce ministry's director general for trade and investment policy, Bae Sung-ki, said. "That is in large part due to the decline in investment from the United States and Japan, whose economies remain sluggish."

by Kim Young-sae