According to the Foreign Investment Promotion Act, foreign investment means a foreigner holding
stocks of a Korean corporation in order to establish a continuous economic relationship with the
corporation, an overseas parent company, etc. taking out a long-term loan with maturity of not less
than five years that is provided to the relevant foreign-invested company, or a foreigner investing
in a non-profit corporation.
INVEST SEOUL provides information of foreign-invested companies regarding their
credit ratings, employee counts, and sales as well as statistics by region.
This information is based on cumulative data obtained from a domestic credit rating agency specializing in credit evaluations of companies up to the third quarter of 2022.
Please note that some items may have been excluded due to insufficient data or undisclosed information.
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) refers to where a foreigner’s investment is at least KRW 100 million and the foreign invested ratio is a minimum of 10% of the total investment amount, in accordance with the “Foreign Investment Promotion Act”. The types of FDI includes acquiring stocks of Korean companies, an overseas parent company’s providing of long-term loan with a maturity of at least 5 years to a foreign-invested company, and a foreigner’s investing in a non-profit organization. In addition, a foreign-invested company’s utilization of its unappropriated retained earnings for building an new factory or expanding an existing one shall also be recognized as FDI.
Invest Seoul provides statistics on the status of foreign-invested companies in Seoul by industry, average number of employees, and sales as follows.
The information below is provided by a domestic corporate credit rating agency and is as of the 2nd quarter of 2024.