The University of George Mason of the United States plans to set up a branch campus in South Korea’s newly developed international town of Songdo, west of Seoul, in 2014, school officials said Friday.

As the school’s second foreign branch, the Songdo campus is expected to launch undergraduate programs in management and economics starting in 2014, followed by global affairs and graduate programs, the school said in its recent report.

Korean students will be allowed to spend their first, second and fourth years at Songdo and their third year in Fairfax, while American students can study in Korea for up to a year, it added.

The new campus will be located at the Songdo Global University Campus complex in the Free Economic Zone of Incheon, which was built with an aim to attract competitive foreign schools in one location. So far, it has attracted more than 10 foreign universities, with the State University of New York at Stony Brook Korea being the first U.S. school to open in the district in March.

“The Songdo campus project strategically and intentionally establishes a visible presence for Mason in a prestigious East Asian location and enhances Mason’s reputation nationally and abroad,” said Anne Schiller, an official of Mason’s global strategies office, in the report. (Yonhap News)