Busan City Enhances Speed and Substance Amid Record-Breaking Investment Attraction Achievements

Mayor Park Hyung-jun's Investment Attraction Performance Hits Record High in Over Two Years Since Inauguration

Since Park Hyung-jun took office as mayor through the by-election in April 2021, Busan City has achieved a record high in corporate and investment attraction with a total of 101 cases and an investment amount of 8.6084 trillion KRW over the past two years.

Compared to the 2020 results before Mayor Park’s inauguration, which attracted 22 companies with 281.5 billion KRW, this is regarded as a remarkable achievement.

Megazone Cloud Opening. (’22.12.1.)

Looking at the performance after signing investment attraction agreements, ▲14 cases have completed move-in and facility construction, and ▲35 cases are in progress including land contracts, design, and construction, meaning that 48% of the projects are actively being invested and are progressing smoothly.

According to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy’s public notice and related regulations on investment attraction, considering that the investment period from land contract to building permits, design, construction, and completion basically takes about 3 years for domestic companies and 5 years for foreign-invested companies, the fact that investments are being implemented at a considerable pace after about two years since Mayor Park’s inauguration shows significant progress.

In particular, among the 14 completed cases, 12 are information technology (IT) and knowledge service companies, demonstrating a much faster investment implementation speed, which suggests that Busan’s industrial ecosystem is quickly adapting to digital transformation and the 4th Industrial Revolution.

As actual examples, cloud-leading companies attracted to create a cloud cluster in Busan Centum City, such as ▲Cloukus (investment agreement on 2021.11.3), ▲Kakao Enterprise (investment agreement on 2022.2.10), and ▲Megazone Cloud (investment agreement on 2022.3.28), completed their investments within months by establishing Busan branches or corporations. Large-scale contact center operators ▲Ubase (investment agreement on 2022.1.26) and ▲Woowa Brothers (investment agreement on 2022.11.3) have also already opened and are operating their centers.

In the bio sector, one of Busan’s core strategic industries, the Singaporean foreign-invested company ▲Prestige Biopharma (investment agreement on 2021.5.18) is about to complete within this year a cutting-edge bio new drug development research and development (R&D) center with a total area of approximately 31,000㎡, consisting of one basement floor and six above-ground floors in the International Myeongji New Town. Domestic logistics leading companies ▲Coupang, ▲BGF Retail, and ▲LX International, attracted in the second half of 2021, have acquired land purchase and building permits and are currently in the architectural design phase, aiming to start construction in the second half of this year.

Busan’s local semiconductor representative company ▲Rino Industry has eased building-related regulations, which were obstacles to investment, through a fast-track process with the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, has already completed land acquisition, and is proceeding with procedures for construction. Recently, ▲Panacia, which signed an investment agreement in February this year, held a groundbreaking ceremony for the ‘Green EPC Center’ with an area of 14,000㎡ in the Mieumsan Industrial Complex on May 16, just three months later, showing an unprecedentedly fast investment progress.

Opening of Kakao Enterprise Cloud Innovation Center (’22.4.29).

Blockchain companies currently preparing to relocate to Busan are expected to accelerate investment further once infrastructure such as the Blockchain Venture Convention, Offshore Company Incubation Center, and the third phase of Busan International Finance Center (BIFC) are established.

Shin Chang-ho, Director of the Digital Economy Innovation Office, said, “The city is actively promoting corporate attraction and investment by holding investment briefing sessions in the metropolitan area and recently in Germany, attracting attention from leading companies in Korea and worldwide to Busan,” adding, “We will continue to focus all our capabilities on creating an investment environment favorable for local companies to operate, along with attracting global companies and future new industry-related companies to revitalize the stagnant regional economy.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.