FSS chief insists Korea is secure for all investors

The head of South Korea's financial regulator has called on global investors to invest more in the South Korean market, highlighting the strong fundamentals of the country's financial market and ongoing efforts to further advance them, the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) said yesterday.

FSS Govenor Lee Bok-hyun made the call in a rare investor relations (IR) event in New York on Thursday (local time), jointly with the Korea Exchange, the country's bourse operator.

In his remarks, the FSS chief insisted that South Korea's financial industry "has sufficient loss-absorbing capacity to respond to potential risks", according to the financial regulator.

"Korea is eager to improve economic fundamentals through a fullfledged restructuring on the back of the soundness" of its financial industry, he added.

Lee's trip to New York follows the launch of the government-led "corporate value-up programme" in late February, which aims to boost the value of local businesses and remove the so-called Korea discount, where local shares are traded at prices lower than their fundamentals.

Lee said Seoul's policy efforts would "contribute to making Korea a more attractive investment destination and also to creating synergy between foreign financial institutions entering Korea and Korean companies expanding overseas".

Harvey Schwartz, CEO of Carlyle Group, expressed his gratitude for South Korea's efforts to communicate with global investors through the event, attended by some 240 representatives from various global financial institutions, including Morgan Stanley and Blackstone.

Lee also held separate meetings with representatives from Carlyle Group, Morgan Stanley and Blackstone to "promote Korea's efforts to develop the capital market and listen to their valuable opinions", the FSS said in a press release.