South Korea balances policy to draw foreign investment, official says

BUSAN, South Korea -- South Korea's loosening of environmental regulations combined with a tough approach to labor activism are helping attract more foreign direct investment, a top government industry official told Nikkei Asia, as the country basks in a series of recent large-scale entries by global technology companies.

Four producers of chipmaking equipment, including ASML of the Netherlands, chose South Korea for research centers and production bases. ASML, for example, supplies extreme ultraviolet lithography equipment, critical for producing advanced chips, to the country's tech champion Samsung Electronics.