Foreign direct investment in Seoul City hit a record high of $8.48 billion last year, driven by a rising inflow of Chinese capital, officials said Thursday.

This is an increase of about 55 percent on-year, the Seoul Metropolitan Government said.

The investments in Seoul also made up 41.6 percent of the total $20 billion FDI in Korea. The previous highest foreign investment amount was $7.2 billion in 2005. 
The sharp rise in Chinese investments contributed to the record-breaking FDI, the city said.

The total investment from China in 2015 was 22 times higher than the previous year. One of the common forms of investment was acquisition of local companies.

The increase was mainly seen in the services sector including finance and insurance industries. Investments in the finance and insurance industry rose by 247 percent, and the rest of the services sector by 70 percent. In the meantime, investments in the manufacturing industry dropped by 39 percent, it added.

FDI through mergers and acquisitions also skyrocketed by 174 percent, while greenfield investments only rose by 3.7 percent, the authorities said.

Seoul City has been aggressively attracting foreign investors with investment briefings and roadshows abroad, including in China, the U.K., the U.S. and Singapore. It has been especially targeting the finance, bio and hospitality industries, they said.

It also inked eight memorandums of understanding with organizations related to start-ups, information technology, finance and culture.

It will make more efforts to draw FDI this year with a newly launched special task force and more investment briefings, officials said.

By Lee Hyun-jeong (rene@heraldcorp.com)