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| President Park Geun-hye discusses Amore Pacific's "Jeju Vital Project" with company CEO Suh Kyung-bae, left, at the "Jeju Creative Economy Innovation Center" on the country's southern resort island, Friday. / Yonhap |
By Lee Hyo-sik
Amore Pacific will open the "Creative Economy Innovation Center" on the southern resort island of Jeju to foster the beauty and tourism industries, Korea's largest cosmetics company said Friday.
When it opens in September, the center will be the second of its kind on Jeju after Daum Kakao, which just opened an innovation center.
"The company has been nurturing a strong tie with Jeju since 1979 when its founder, Suh Sung-whan, began turning barren soil into a large-scale green tea farm," an Amore Pacific spokeswoman said. "We have established a green tea complex on the southwestern part of the island, including a green tea museum and a research lab, which all have become a tourist attraction. We have also made Jeju green tea one of the world's premium products."
The cosmetics firm has been seeking ways to achieve sustainable growth with local communities on Jeju, while preserving the island's pristine nature and biodiversity, she said.
"We have come to a conclusion that setting up the innovation center is the best way to grow together with Jeju Island," the spokeswoman said. "The envisioned center aims to transform the island into a beauty industry hub. Through the center, we will invest 100 billion won ($91 million) to establish a beauty industry ecosystem ranging from product development to commercialization. We also plan to foster premium culture and tourism contents to attract more Korean and non-Korea visitors."
Amore will first establish the "Green Beauty Valley" where the company cultivates high-quality green tea, and operates resorts and other tourist facilities.
"We would like to transform our green tea farms into an attractive tourism destination by adding leisure facilities," she said. "This will bring more visitors onto the island and create new jobs. The company will also set up the Innisfree Foundation, capitalized at 10 billion won, to more effectively conserve the island's ecosystem and promote the cultural content industry."
Innisfree is Amore's most successful low-cost cosmetics brand.
The company also plans to establish a 30 billion won "shared-growth" fund to help small and medium enterprises and startups on Jeju Island.
Besides Amore and Daum Kakao, Hyundai, Samsung, SK, Hyosung and other large companies have set up innovation centers across the country over the past year in a bid to facilitate President Park Geun-hye administration's flagship "creative economy" policy.
