Foreign direct investment (FDI) pledged to the country has surged more than 5,000 times in 60 years, which helped play a key pillar of now Asia's fourth-largest economy, the industry ministry said Tuesday.

In 1962, a local carmaker reported receiving $3 million in foreign investment, the first of its kind for the country, and the total FDI amount that year stood at $4 million, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.

The foreign investment then spiked drastically to come to $20.75 billion last year, and the figure for the first nine months of this year stood at $18.2 billion, the ministry said, releasing the data to mark Foreign Company Day.

Currently, foreigner-invested firms account for 19.4 percent of the country's total exports, or $117.4 billion, and 5 percent of the total employment, or 740,000 workers, the data showed.

"The government will create an advanced investment ecosystem, boost communications with foreign investors and step up efforts for deregulation to make South Korea a stable and attractive investment destination," Trade Minister Yeo Han-koo said, expressing gratitude to those firms for being the country's good partners and supporters. (Yonhap)