South Korea will relax regulations on the country’s financial markets to attract more foreign investors as it aims to climb the MSCI stock index.
The government will remove a complex registration requirement for foreign investors to trade Korean stocks. It will also enable the offering of security tokens to drive the digital asset market.
According to Kim Joo-hyun, chairman of the Financial Services Commission, foreigners with internationally recognized identification such as passports or legal entity identifiers are allowed to invest in local capital markets.
The country’s top financial regulator also said authorities would develop a secure trading system to better protect investors.
Finance Minister Choo Kyung-ho said earlier this month that the country would extend trading hours of the forex market to 2am as early as the second half of 2024. The country’s foreign exchange market currently runs from 9 am to 3:30 pm.
Choo also mentioned that the government would require major listed companies to file key regulatory filings in English starting next year to make the country’s capital markets more accessible to foreign investors.
South Korea has been classified as an emerging market by index maker MSCI, largely due to the country’s refusal to allow offshore trading of the Korean won and its complicated registration process for foreign investors.
The country aims to achieve developed country status and include its shares in the MSCI World Index.
The government is also trying to improve the South Korean bond market environment for foreign investors to be included in the World Government Bond Index.
FTSE Russell, a global index provider, recently put South Korea on a watch list for possible inclusion in the index after the country decided to cut taxes on foreign bond investments.
Comments are closed.