Dubai to invest $20b in South Korea

Seoul: Dubai is seeking to invest up to $20 billion in South Korea under the incoming Lee Myung-bak government, the head of Investment Corporation of Dubai (ICD), Mohammad Al Shaibani, said during a meeting with President-elect Lee in his Seoul office, according to Yonhap News Agency.

Al Shaibani was in Seoul to deliver a personal letter from His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, congratulating Lee on his election win.

"The world has changed greatly since I visited Dubai in the late seventies, and I feel that South Korea has lot to learn from Dubai," Lee was quoted as saying by Yonhap News. "As the chairman of an investment firm, I ask for your cooperation in making large investments in my country."

Al Shaibani told the Korean leader: "My country is planning to set up a fund of $20 billion to invest in South Korea."

Lee has been striving to induce investment from Dubai. Last month he appointed David Eldon, chairman of Dubai International Financial Centre Authority, as co-chairman of a special committee under his transition team. Eldon is the first non-Korean to take such a prominent position in South Korea's presidential transition committee.

Lee, a former CEO of Hyundai Construction and Engineering, has been pledging to form a "business-friendly" government, seeking ways of boosting foreign investment in Korea. He will be inaugurated on February 25.

Big drop

Foreign investment in the country dropped 6.5 per cent year-on-year to $10.5 billion last year from $11.2 billion in 2006, according to recent data from the Ministry of Commerce. The figure stood at $11.6 billion in 2005.

Al Shaibani also reviewed an envisioned investment in large-scale projects , including the Saemangeum land reclamation plan. Saemangeum is South Korea's largest area of tidal flats of some 40,100 hectares, based in the North Jeolla Province.