Korean businessmen study RI market

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Twenty Korean businessmen are here for a three-day visit to explore business and investment opportunities and to promote trade relations with Indonesia.

The trade mission is led by Shyn Dong Soo, vice mayor of Daegu, South Korea's third largest city.

"This is our first visit to Indonesia," he said, adding that they would meet a number of Indonesian businessmen and the executives of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) to share experiences and information about business and investment opportunities.

"We will visit several companies in the Jababeka industrial estate in Bekasi, West Java," Shyn said.

The 20 companies are involved in textiles and textile machinery and automotive parts and component production.

Shyn said the South Korean firms were concerned about the heightened tension in Indonesia following protests against the U.S.-led attacks on Afghanistan, but he said this had not stopped the companies from exploring business opportunities in the country.

Soo Ik Kim, director general of the Korea Trade Center at the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Jakarta, said 400 South Korean companies operated in Indonesia with a total investment of US$10 billion and employed 500,000 local workers.