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If the sales staff of general trading companies constituted the rank and file of Korea¡¯s economic offensive in the 1970s and 1980s, now it is stock traders who battle for their nation in the global market. And for "made-in-Korea goods" now read "Korean funding."
As of Jan. 20, the money pouring into overseas investment funds amounted to W18.7 trillion, nine times the W2.1 trillion (US$1=W937) in 2002. Stock traders are busy all over Asia carrying enormous amounts of won. Last year, Korean funds accounted for 34.2 percent of all foreign funds invested in Vietnam, five times the proportion in 2005. Korea has also emerged as the biggest foreign investor in Cambodia. Amid the overseas investment frenzy, Korean funds are flowing into Asian stock markets, and real estate and businesses via direct investment, changing the face of local financial markets. It is as if a Korean investment wave has replaced the Korean pop-culture wave.
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Korea Investment & Securities¡¯ Worldwide Vietnam Deposit Fund.
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Besides investing in overseas stock markets, dealers buy and develop land and invest directly in the development of oil fields. Some stock salesmen dig for iron ore in a foreign country after discovering that there is a deposit in the ground where Korean general trading companies felled trees in the 1980s. They have blazed trails, building financial infrastructure where there was no adequate environment for investment. Vietnam and Cambodia have built their stock exchange and transaction systems with help from Korea, which has also exported a bond management system to Malaysia. If the financial infrastructure is built the Korean way, Korean financial institutions don¡¯t need to develop computer systems from scratch to suit them. The country still has a long way to go to become a Northeast Asian financial hub. But it is building Asia¡¯s financial highway.
Once only businesses could invest overseas, but now anybody can do it through overseas funds managed by neighborhood banks or securities firms. Koreans' overseas investments will likely increase further. Recently, the government has been encouraging overseas investment, offering tax breaks for profits from fund transactions and allowing foreign fund managers to sell real estate funds in Korea. Korea Investment & Securities predicts that more than W7 trillion will be poured into overseas investment funds this year alone. With the domestic stock market bearish, the growth rate of overseas funds overtook that of domestic stock funds late last year. Dr. Kim Jae-chil of the Korea Securities Research Institute said, "With Korea becoming an ageing society, the only choice is to set up high-yield overseas investment funds. That trend is going to continue."
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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