WAIPA 'strategic sector development' award won in Geneva

Foreign chipmaker facilities attracted to Korea

Second international honor after UN investment prize last month

$522 million in investment secured since 2023

KOTRA's headquarters in Yangjae, Seoul. [KOTRA]
KOTRA's headquarters in Yangjae, Seoul. [KOTRA]

Invest Korea, the foreign investment arm of the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA), has won an international investment promotion award in recognition of its work strengthening the semiconductor materials, parts and equipment supply chain.

KOTRA announced Wednesday that Invest Korea received the "strategic sector development" award at the World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies' 2026 Excellence in Investment Promotion ceremony, held Tuesday (local time) in Geneva, Switzerland.

The award recognized Invest Korea's success in attracting foreign chipmakers to establish production and research facilities in Korea, bolstering the supply chain for a critical industry.

WAIPA was founded in 1995 under the leadership of the UN Conference on Trade and Development and counts more than 130 investment promotion agencies from around the world among its members.

The association selects outstanding agencies each year across four categories: one-stop investor support, strategic sector development, investment promotion excellence, and aftercare. A panel of international organization experts selects one winner per category.

The strategic sector development category — in which Invest Korea won — evaluates investment attraction strategies and their results in boosting the competitiveness of specific industries. Key criteria include industry expertise, the ability to identify overseas investors, and collaboration with government bodies, companies and research institutions.

Invest Korea earned high marks through its semiconductor supply chain strengthening project. Semiconductor production requires a wide range of materials, components and equipment, and some critical items depend heavily on overseas suppliers. Working with domestic chipmakers, Invest Korea identified foreign companies needed to fill those gaps and persuaded them to set up production facilities and research and development bases in Korea.

After those companies entered the Korean market, Invest Korea continued to support their operations — helping with workforce recruitment and raw material procurement. The initiative went beyond simply securing investment commitments, focusing instead on expanding actual domestic production capacity.

Invest Korea had already been recognized for the same work at the UN Conference on Trade and Development's 2026 UN Investment Promotion Award ceremony, held in Doha, Qatar, on Oct. 25.

At that event, UNCTAD noted that Invest Korea had attracted $518 million in foreign direct investment in the semiconductor materials, parts and equipment sector since 2023, and projected that the investments would create more than 680 direct jobs by 2027.

Foreign investment in advanced industries has continued to flow in. At the Invest Korea Summit 2026 held in Seoul on Nov. 4, seven global companies — including US-based Amkor Technology, Japan's Tokyo Electron and Germany's Henkel — pledged a combined $2 billion in domestic investment.

Invest Korea plans to expand its efforts to attract foreign investors and secure production and research facilities not only in semiconductors but also in other advanced industries such as AI.

"This award is recognition by the international community of Invest Korea's efforts to identify overseas companies that Korea's industries need and turn that into actual investment," Kim Tae-hyung, head of Invest Korea, said. "We will continue to leverage our global investment network to strengthen supply chains in advanced industries such as semiconductors and AI, and translate investment opportunities for Korean industries and regions into concrete results."


kwater@heraldcorp.com