DGFEZ team interviewed Amy Jackson, the president of AMCHAM Korea to learn more about AMCHAM Korea and doing business in South Korea.

Q1. Can you tell us about AMCHAM Korea?
A. AMCHAM is the biggest foreign chamber of commerce in Korea, with about 900 company members, about 1,800 individual members. We are very proud to say that we’ve been in Korea for 60 years now, so this is our hwan-gap(환갑) year, and we focus, of course, on trying to promote better ties between the U.S. and Korea, and to represent the interests of our members both to the U.S. government and to the Korean government.

Q2. How can American companies benefit by operating in Korea?
A. Korea is one of the United State’s largest markets, so very important to the U.S. economy and to U.S. companies anywhere from financial services to manufacturing and other sectors of the economy. We also find Korea to be a great place to invest because of the really dedicated and well-educated workforce, strong protections for intellectual property rights, adherence to democracy and for many other reasons.

Q3. What American companies are operating in Daegu?
A. Daegu is obviously a big, industrialized area of Korea, very well know for certain sectors of the economy, so we have big investment from auto parts manufacturers. We have big investment from Boeing which is just opening an MRO center here, and of course we have many companies that operate, like, our auto dealers Ford, Chrysler and GM have a presence here, ADT which is a very fine American security company has customers throughout Daegu, and many other American companies have a strong presence here.

Q4. What is the AMCHAM Council on Innovation for the Future?
A. The AMCHAM Council on Innovation for the Future was launched about a year ago, in anticipation of our 60th anniversary in Korea, and knowing the strengths of the United States in technology and innovation and the strengths of Korea in technology and innovation, we thought this was a great way to forge new partnerships for the future between American companies and Korean companies, so talking about ways to partner and also talking about policies the Korean government can put into effect to make Korea a more innovative and creative economy.

Q5. How can companies get information about the Korean market besides AMCHAM?
A. I think there are many resources in Korea for foreign companies that want to come here, or who are coming here. They can be sponsored by the Korean national government, like KOTRA, but also the different free economic zones like Daegu-Gyeongbuk Free Economic Zone, and others can provide really important resources to potential investors.