By Seo Jee-yeon
Staff Reporter

From next Tuesday, foreign individuals investing $5 million or more in South Korea will be given permanent residency visas (F-5) regardless of their length of stay.

The decision was confirmed yesterday at a weekly Cabinet meeting at Chong Wa Dae.

Park Sang-hee, an official of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy said that the program is part of a five-year project to improve the Korean business environment for foreigners. He added that F-5 visa holders are able to avoid the hassles of having to extend their visa.

He predicted that about 100 foreign nationals a year are expected to benefit from the new program. About 70 to 80 foreigners made investments of $5 million or more in Korea last year, according to the ministry.

Under the current law, foreign investors are eligible for the F-5 visa after staying three years in Korea when they invest $500,000 or more here.

The Ministry of Justice also announced that when a foreigner qualifies as a corporate investor and applies for a visa or to extend his or her stay, the maximum extension given at a time will be lengthened from the current two years to three years.

The F-1 visa can be given to a foreign domestic worker assigned to a foreigner investing $500,000 or more. Previously, the F-1 visa had only been available for the foreign domestic workers of diplomats in Korea.

The government has sought benefits and incentives for overseas investors to boost foreign direct investment (FDI), which has fallen for the past few years partly due to the slackening of global cross-border investment.

The FDI, which fell for two years after 2001, doubled during the first half of this year from 2003, posting $5.05 billion, thanks to heavy investments in the service sector. However, it failed to reach the record high of $7.55 billion set in the second half of 2001.

Offshore investment in the service sector for the first six months of the year soared by 277 percent to $3.2 billion, taking almost two-thirds of the total FDI during the period.

jyseo@koreatimes.co.kr