A Korean governor has pledged $2 million for a Montgomery County science and technology business incubator project, shortly after Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett met with him during a 10-day Asian economic development trip.
Woo-Taik Chung, governor of Korea’s Chungbuk province, agreed to provide the funding to increase his region’s presence in the United States and establish his region as a biotechnology hub in his own country, Montgomery officials said. A staff member from Chungbuk has been working at the Montgomery County Department of Economic Development on a temporary assignment to develop a more formal business partnership between the two areas.
Leggett’s staff said there has been nearly $10 million in Korean money directly invested in Montgomery County-based firms over the past several years.
“A lot of times on these trips, you are laying the groundwork for things that will come later on, so when you are able to bring particular things back like this right away it is good,” Leggett’s spokesman Patrick Lacefield said.
Some council members and unions officials criticized Leggett for taking the roughly $38,000 trip at a time when the county faces a $250 million budget deficit and leaders are contemplating deep budget cuts and furloughs for workers.
Council President Mike Knapp said the $2 million investment alone does not justify the trip.
“If this is all that comes of it, not really,” Knapp said. “We’re a global economy — you can probably always point to good things from a trip, ‘we met these people, we did these things,’ but to do what? We have to always look at the opportunity cost. That $40,000 could have been used for something else, so without having their specific plan for economic development, what does this do strategically?”
Leggett also visited China, becoming the first Montgomery County executive to make a formal visit to the country. While there, he signed an agreement with Gov. Li Yiping of China’s Pudong New Area to strengthen economic cooperation between Montgomery County and the Chinese region.
“China is looking to increase their foreign investments,” Lacefield said. “If we’re not out there pitching the county and pitching their investments, other places will get this business before us. If we don’t toot our own horn, nobody else will.”
