SEOUL, KOREA - China Investment Corp., China's sovereign wealth fund with more than 570 billion in assets under management, is considering a proposal to consign the job of investing in Korean financial markets to Korea-based asset management companies.

Gao Xiqing, CEO of China Investment Corp., said this in an interview with the Korea Economic Daily on November 21 and added, "CIC is investing in Korea through non-public private equity funds."

 

"My company is keenly interested in the Korean economy that has contributed so much to the global economic growth. In particular, we are more interested in areas such as automobile, electronics, healthcare, and beauty," he said.

 

In March 2011, China Investment Corp. had selected three domestic asset management firms including Samsung Asset Management for that purpose but has not paid money to them. To this, Mr. Gao said, "It is just being postponed for internal reasons, not cancelled. We are working to make it work now." He conceded, however, "As Korea's capital market is small in size with high fluctuations, it is not the best market for China Investment Corp. to move money in. For this reason we have to be very prudent in investment without an adequate way to hedge the risk."