South Korea has attracted a record high level of foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2023, signaling that global investors remain confident in the long-term prospects of the country's technology sector.
According to the Ministry of Trade on Jan. 4, inflows into South Korea in 2023 were about $18.8 billion, up 3.4 percent year-on-year, with the electronics sector accounting for $3 billion. And in 2022, foreign investment in the electronics industry was about $853 million.
Semiconductors and rechargeable batteries are the two pillars of Korea's electronics industry.
While global consumer demand for some technology products, including computers, remains slow, semiconductors resumed strong growth at the end of 2023, with Korea's semiconductor shipments up 21.8% in December 2023 from the same period in 2022. Exports of rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles slipped 1 percent in December from a year earlier after posting double-digit growth in November.
South Korea, home to two of the world's largest memory chip makers, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, is leading a program to create a semiconductor cluster south of the capital after demand for memory chips surged during the outbreak.
In terms of rechargeable batteries, LG New Energy Solution (LG Energy Solution) and two other South Korean companies held about 23.4% of the global EV battery market as of October 2023, according to local research firm SNE Research. South Korea's foreign direct investment commitments also reached a record $32.7 billion in 2023, up 7.5 percent year-on-year, the data showed, suggesting that funding from overseas is likely to continue to grow.
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