South Korea:opportunities and Disadvantages

South Korea, also known as the "Asian Dragon", is one of the most important global economic powers today. Not only is the local economy very well off, it’s also open to foreign investment. A series of steps needs to be taken in order to understand the best approach, before exploring more. To open a foreign company in South Korea, first step that is a must is to report the branch to a specified foreign exchange bank and complete the court registration and business registration. To create a commercial entity or limited liability company, a minimum capital of 50 million Korean Won (about 36,000 euros) is required. Moreover, the company status must be certified by a notary and a founder shall be appointed for registration. The Board of Directors of the company will then be responsible for its management.

Opportunities in South Korea

South Korea's growth is a mix of quick achievement of 100% literacy that started in Japanese occupation, significant land reforms that made the middle class, significant market reforms that helped the middle class trade with the world and a demographic one-time lottery. Most communist nations miss the stage 3 thus they are educated with land reforms with booming growth. Many crony capitalist nations miss stages 1 & 2, thus they have a "free" market but without a populace that is educated and with land to make use of the market. South Korea made sure they ticked off all its boxes.

Disadvantages in South Korea

Hangul is the main language used in South Korea with different accent. Many South Koreans do speak English with limited vocabulary but most of South Koreans can’t speak English properly. The Korean young population is quite risk averse. This is changing a bit as many students show more interest in entrepreneurship. The lack of a startup culture is also big concern for foreign business owners.

Relationship between Bangladesh and South Korea

Bangladesh’s export to Korea is growing fast, as by the portrayed bilateral relations in the last 47 years of diplomatic ties.

Bangladesh is Korea’s ‘priority partner country’ when it comes to the development cooperation as it is the fourth largest recipient of Economic Development Cooperation Fund loan from one of the world’s largest economies. Now Korean investors were running garment factories with more than 160,000 workers in Bangladesh, accounting for 6 percent of the total exports of Bangladesh, according to the envoy.

Apart from apparel, big companies like Samsung and LG are expanding their commercial presence in Bangladesh while small and medium-sized enterprises are also coming.

It is also building a Korean Export Processing Zone in Chittagong, the first private EPZ in Bangladesh that expects to attract investment of $ 1.3 billion from all over the world.

The two-way trade is now close to $ 2 billion, Bangladesh’s export was growing faster than ever before mainly due to duty-free access of Bangladeshi products. The exports have increased drastically – by 75 percent – in 2016 compared with 2014. Av. yearly growth (2005-13): 80%. Compared to other East Asian countries, trade in Korea has remained at moderate level. Opportunities for enhancing bilateral trade are largely unexplored.