Invest Seoul attracts financial companies of Hong Kong and oil money in its first year

Invest Seoul, which marked its first anniversary on February 7, has been positioned as a financial affairs institution for Seoul, the financial center of Asia and the financial hub of the world. Declaring the year of 2023 as the first year of Seoul growing as the financial center of Asia, Invest Seoul announced that it would focus on attracting global financial companies based in Asia, global companies engaged in Seoul’s key industries such as fintech and biomed, and investments from the Middle East. First of all, it will establish a database for financial institutions and host a roadshow to widely promote the charms and merits of Seoul in order to attract financial institutions based in Asia. Starting with the Asian Financial Forum held in Hong Kong in January, it will work on attracting Asian financial companies from Hong Kong and Singapore. Invest Seoul will also strengthen its partnership with other global cities. It will attract global companies in collaboration with industrial clusters in London and Boston so as to develop new industries, including fintech, biomed, digital content, and artificial intelligence (AI). In addition, Invest Seoul will establish cooperative relations with the sovereign wealth funds and governmental agencies of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It will provide Middle Eastern investors with customized information about innovative or promising companies standing out in the game and content industries of Seoul. It will put forth effort to attract investments from the Middle East by widely expanding its network. When Invest Seoul was founded in 2022, it focused on widely promoting its functions and establishing a network. In other words, it established a foundation for strategic cooperation to develop the industrial ecosystem, instead of simply attracting investments. One of the results of its efforts is that Invest Seoul successfully made Eyeline Studios, a subsidiary of Netflix, set its special effect studio in Seoul. It is expected to lead to USD 100 million of foreign investment and at least 200 new jobs for the next five years. Not only is it the biggest investment attracted since the foundation of Invest Seoul, but also it will be a chance to develop talented individuals through its job training project in special effects considered one of the most promising industries. Invest Seoul is accelerating its offline investment attraction activities which have been slowed down for the last three years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It held ten IR meetings both at home and abroad, including Silicon Valley, and successfully matched investors and companies in 330 cases. Invest Seoul hosted the Seoul Investors Forum to publicize Seoul as the city of investment and business. Numerous investors from all over the world gathered in Yeouido and networked with companies based in Seoul. It means that Invest Seoul became an investment platform that connects investors looking for promising companies and innovative companies looking for investment. Invest Seoul said that it would put forth the efforts to develop Seoul as a global economic hub even though investment competition is getting fierce all over the world.