The Americas

The Officials of Orange County of America Visited Chungnam and Discussed Trade, Tourism, and Internship.

On April 13, 2010, Janet Nguyen, the supervisor of Orange County of America and her group visited Chungnam.

The 22 officials of the county include Janet Nguyen, the supervisor, Thomas Mauk, the administrator, and entrepreneurs, and participated in the discussions about mutual interests such as economic and human exchanges and cooperative plans between Orange County and Chungnam.

Janet Nguyen proposed, “We hope for further exchanges and cooperation with Chungnam for our mutual growth.”

The officials took a guided tour of Chungnam's industrial sites including the Asan plant of Hyundai Motors and showed an active interest in Chungnam's economic investments by participating in the “Development of Free Economic Zones and Explanatory Meeting for Investments” by the Yellow Sea Free Economic Zone.

Located in southern California, Orange County has a population of 3 million and 32 cities. In addition to the world-famous tourist attractions such as the Disney Land and Newport Beach, it also has Silicon Valley and the headquarters of multinational corporations on Fortune's 500 list.

American Grains Company Cargill Made 65 Million Dollar Investment in Chungnam

It will build a formula feed factory in Dangjin.

The world's largest grains company Cargill of America made another investment in Dangjin.

An MOU was signed between Lee In-hwa, the acting provincial governor, and Kim Go-yong, the chairman of Cargill Korea, at the provincial office on February 9, 2010. The MOU says Cargill will invest $65 million in the supporting area of Yanggok Quay of Dangjin Port.

Cargill (Agri Purina) will invest about 70 billion won to build a formula feed factory at the support area of 107,917㎡ (32,000 pyeong) in Yanggok Quay, Dangjin Port by 2013.

At the signing ceremony, Kim Gi-yong, chairman of Cargill Korea, said, “Cargill has been carrying out the feed business in Korea with success. This investment will create 150 new jobs and make a huge contribution to Korea's cattle industry by stabilizing the feed prices for Korean cattle farmers.”

Cargill was founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1865 and today has 1,100 offices in 67 countries and 160,000 employees as a global company leading the agricultural and food industry.

T20 Tourism Ministers Conference Will Be Held in Chungnam

A good opportunity to promote Baekje's cultural tourism to the world.

Attracting the tourism ministers of G20 countries, the second T20 Tourism Ministers Conference will be held in Buyeo, Chungnam in October, 2010 (11~14).

The T20 Tourism Ministers Conference was organized at the 18th UNWTO general meeting (Kazakhstan, October, 2009) in order to highlight the importance of the tourism industry as one of the catalysts of the global economy to the G20 summit (Seoul, November, 2010). The first conference had 100 participants including the tourism ministers of the G20 countries and the secretary-general of UNWTO.

Chungnam was able to attract the conference by emphasizing that the T20 conference would be meaningful in Buyeo, Chungnam in 2010 since the Baekje Cultural Complex would be open and the Great Global Baekje Festival would be held in addition to stronger cooperation for the activation of global tourism around the G20 countries.

The T20 member countries are the U. S., the U. K., Brazil, Germany, Japan, Russia, Canada, South Korea, China, India, South Africa, Italy, Australia, Argentina, France, Turkey, Mexico, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and Spain.

Chungnam Signed an MOU of 100 Million Dollars with American MEMC

It will expand semiconductor silicon wafer production facilities.

Headquartered in St. Louis in the U. S., MEMC will invest over 100 million dollars to expand its semiconductor wafer production facilities in Chungnam, the mecca of the semiconductor and display industry.

An MOU of 100 million dollars was signed between Park Han-gyu, deputy mayor of Cheonan, and Shaker Sadasivam, CEO of MEMC, at the meeting room of MEMC headquarters on February 1, 2010.

At the signing ceremony, Shaker Sadasivam, CEO of MEMC, mentioned regarding the background of the investment, “We have supplied our products to Samsung Electronics from the Cheonan factory since 1990. Convinced that the center of the remarkable growth of Korea's semiconductor industry in the global markets in recent years lies in Chungnam, we decided to build a new production line for 300mm wafers in Cheonan.”

MEMC was founded as an expert in wafers, which makes semiconductor chips, in St. Louis, Missouri in 1959. Running nine production facilities in six countries including Korea and Japan, the multinational company has annual sales of 2 billion dollars.

Chungnam Signed an Investment Agreement of 60 Million Dollars with Two American Companies in LA

Stereo Pictures and Lumiette will make 30 million dollar investments each.

Lee In-hwa, the acting provincial governor of Chungnam, joined the investment agreement of 30 million dollars with Phillip Rhee of Stereo Pictures and Park Han-gyu, deputy mayor of Cheonan in LA on January 29, 2010. Following the signing ceremony, he also made an investment agreement of 30 million dollars to build a flat panel lamps factory in Cheonan Industrial Complex 2 with William F. Miller, the chairman of Lumiette, a renewable energy company in San Jose.

Stereo Pictures headquartered in LA has the world's best technologies to convert 2D images into 3D ones for Hollywood's major film studios. As it moves to the Techno Park of Cheonan, Chungnam will be able to attract large-scale investments from major American film studios such as Warner Bros., Fox, Paramount, Universal Studios, and Disney.

Located in the Silicon Valley of San Jose, Lumiette promised to make investments to build a factory to manufacture flat panel lamps in Cheonan. The investment will create opportunities for Chungnam to make a technological partnership with global companies in the neighboring area such as Samsung Electronics and emerge as Asia's central production base of lighting products.

The Asian

The World's Leading Coffee Company Doutor Signed an Investment Agreement of 10 Million Dollars 

The world's leading coffee manufacturer Doutor is coming to Asan, Chungnam.

On March 15, 2010, Chungnam made an investment agreement of 10 million dollars with Doutor at its headquarters in Tokyo. Joining the agreement were Lee In-hwa, the acting provincial governor of Chungnam, Jeong Nam-gyun, deputy mayor of Asan, and Yutaka Toriba, the president of Doutor.

Japan's No. 1 player in coffee manufacturing and sales, global Doutor expects 80 billion won of sales and direct and indirect employment of 2,500 people from the investment in Chungnam. It also anticipates the investment will lead to exports to Southeast Asia and China as well as Japan from the Korean office.

Targeting Asia, where coffee drink brands have made explosive growth, Doutor's investment in Korea seems to have immeasurable potential in the growing market.

Chungnam in Full-Scale Efforts to Attract Shanghai's Capital

 Chungnam has fastened its steps to target Chinese capital. The Chungnam Investment Attraction Team (four members) led by Lee Jae-gwan, the head of Chungnam's Investment and Trade, visited Shanghai, China and engaged in activities to attract investments from March 3 to 5, 2010.

The team made visits to ten promising Chinese companies in medicine, logistics, real estate, manufacturing, communication, and tourism, had talks with them about intentions and fields of investment, and discussed plans to promote investments including incentives.

After the talks A said, “We have shown interest in investments in Korea for technological partnership and advancement into the American market. By discussing investments with Chungnam, we were able to gather much-needed information. It was a very useful meeting.” The team also had talks with a medical company that has a network of over 1,000 distribution points across China, discussed the introduction and sales routes of its ginseng products in China, made considerable progress in many areas, and explored the real possibility of Chungnam ginseng's advancement into the Chinese market.

Since the companies that the team had talks with move the Chinese economy, enjoy a high level of recognition in their fields, and are closely related to large investors, there will be full-scale discussions about investments in Chungnam soon.

The Europe

Belgian Government Shows Special Interest in Chungnam 

Invited by President Lee, Yves Leterme, the Belgian prime minister, visited Korea from April 5 to 7, 2010. In the middle of his busy schedule in Korea, he made time to visit Umicore, a Belgian investment company in Chungnam, and Samsung SDI.

Located in Cheonan, Chungnam, preferred by foreign investors, Umicore (Mark Greenberg, CEO) is headquartered in Belgium and the world's leading secondary battery manufacturer. In 2004, it made its first investment agreement of 8.7 million dollars with Chungnam and has operated production and R&D facilities for battery polarization. In October, 2008, its headquarters in Belgium made an investment agreement to invest a total of 40 million dollars in the expansion of the Industrial Complex 3 in Cheonan and the foundation of production facility of secondary lithium-ion batteries.

In May, 2009, the Crown Prince Philippe and his company participated in the ceremony to celebrate the completion of Umicore's Cheonan plant, showed great interest in investments in Chungnam, and promised to provide active support for Umicore's business as well as further exchanges between Belgium and Chungnam. In future, the exchanges between Belgium and Chungnam will be more active after the prime minister's visit this time.