‘Xian is the place to run businesses’

Park Soo-young, president of Tomato-Soft Company

XIAN, China – Park Soo-young, 40, runs a software development company named Tomato-Soft Company in this city in Shaanxi Province, China.

He is one of the first Koreans to open up a business at Xian’s Software Park, a district designated as a special economic zone by the Chinese government.

The company began operating in June 2011 and focuses on developing new technologies for components of electronic equipment.

Xian, one of China’s oldest cities located at the center of the nation, is currently transforming into an industrial megacity, riding on the Chinese government’s plan to economically revive the nation’s central and northwest regions.

“The Chinese government offers various benefits to foreign companies such as refunding rent fees to companies that have invested at the Xian Software Park,” said Park, the president of the firm, in an interview with The Korea Times, last month. “Also if we introduce high-quality human resources here, companies can also receive income tax refunds.”

Park, however, said the most attractive benefit the city provides are the human resources needed for businesses to operate.

“The cost of labor is cheap as everyone knows. Say payment for a Korean worker is 100 percent, workers here cost 30 percent of that,” Park said. “But in terms of efficiency, they average at around half that of Korean workers. It’s beneficial.”

Park also said the level of Chinese labor efficiency is growing rapidly, citing the number of educational facilities located in Xian.

Out of a population of 8.4 million in the city, around 1 million are university graduates. There are 90 universities and 3,000 research institutes in the city.

“I have 28 local workers in my company and I am really satisfied with their working level,” Park said. “Xian is the place to run businesses.”

Tech giant Samsung Electronics earlier announced investment of $7 billion in Xian High-Tech Industries Zone to build research and development centers and factories for semiconductors, attracting other small- and medium- sized businesses to follow suit. <The Korea Times/Chung Min-uck>