U.S. president welcomes SK’s 2.9 trillion won investment plan

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won met with U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House and unveiled a 22-billion-dollar investment plan. The meeting was held online as President Biden had been infected with COVID-19, in which Biden welcomed the investment plan as a "historic announcement" and thanked SK 10 times.

SK's investment plan to the U.S. involves 15 billion dollars in building memory semiconductor facilities and R&D, 5 billion dollars in green energy and 2 billion dollars in the bio industry. Including 7 billion dollars earmarked to invest in the U.S., the investment plan reaches almost 30 billion dollars. A significant portion of the 247 trillion won plan to invest in 'BBC industries (battery, bio and semiconductors)' over the next five years would go to the U.S.

During Biden's visit to Korea in May, Samsung Electronics said that it would invest 17 billion dollars to build foundry facilities in Texas, while Hyundai Motor unveiled a 10-billion-dollar investment plan that included building of an electric car plant in Georgia. Korean companies' growing investment in the U.S. appears to be inevitable, given intensifying trade tensions between the U.S. and China, growing dependence on U.S. technology and facilities in semiconductors, the U.S.’ strategies to give preference to U.S. manufactured products.

A growing area of concern is that we have not seen growing levels of foreign investment to Korea. Net foreign investment outflow, which is the amount of foreign investment to Korea from Korea's investment overseas, continues to grow. This is attributable to lacking regulatory environment ranked among lower ranks of the OECD member countries, trade union struggles and uncompetitive tax regulations. We need to expedite regulatory and labor reform to build a favorable and inviting business environment for foreign investors.