SEOUL, July 8 (Xinhua) -- The South Korean government is planning to attract foreign business schools and financial training institutions to address the country's shortage of finance professionals, the Korea Herald reported Tuesday.

The South Korean government will also initiate training programs for 10,000 finance professionals this year, said the Financial Services Commission (FSC) and the Korea Securities Dealers Association (KSDA), as an effort to build South Korea as an international financial hub.

The measures also aims at mitigating recruitment competition for securities firms, which is expected to intensify as regulations concerning the establishment of securities companies are eased, according to the FSC.

The FSC said the South Korean government will try to lure foreign institutions to establish branches in the country or found new institutions in collaboration with foreign organizations in order to make the plan succeed.

As part of plans to attract foreign institutions, the government is considering revising related regulations including those concerning foreign institutions transferring funds out of the country and making local educational qualifications valid whenapplying to the institutions, the FSC added.

The South Korean government is also considering giving partial subsidies to business schools and providing tax exemptions for 7 percent of the funds that securities firms would spend on staff training, the FSC said.

In order to address this year's estimated shortage of about 5,000 people, the KSDA said it would be expanding the Korea Securities Training Institute's programs to train about 10,000 finance professionals this year.