South Korea’s Second Vice Industry Minister Park Il-jun poses with participants after signing a memorandum of understanding to support the establishment of a fund to to promote the hydrogen industry at the Korea H2 Business Summit 2022 at Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) in Seoul on July 6, 2022. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, July 7 (Korea Bizwire) — The Korea H2 Business Summit, a hydrogen council established primarily by major companies such as Hyundai Motor, SK and POSCO, on Wednesday set up a fund to promote the hydrogen industry.
The fund worth 500 billion won (US$383 million) will be established via investments from domestic member companies and foreign investors and is expected to be liquidated after 10 years of operation.
Brokerage firm Mirae Asset Securities Co., the parent fund manager, plans to recruit investors by the end of this year with its partner Stonepeak and the investment company Noh & Partners.
The hydrogen fund will establish domestic and overseas hydrogen production, distribution and storage infrastructure and make investments to develop core hydrogen technology.
“The fund set the yield rate target at 8 percent, with 70 percent of the fund used for the establishment of infrastructure and 30 percent for technology investment,” said Bahn Sang-woo, a managing director of Mirae Asset Securities.
“Hydrogen will account for about 33 percent of energy use in South Korea by 2050, higher than the global average of 10 percent. This indicates that South Korea is expected to become one of the countries that uses hydrogen the most,” said Choi Yong-ho, a partner at Deloitte Consulting which acts as a secretariat office for the summit.
J. S. Shin (js_shin@koreabizwire.com)
