A high-tech US$1.7bn MGM Studios theme park is to be built in Yeongjongdo, near South Korea’s Incheon International Airport.

A memorandum of understanding has been signed by Incheon International Airport Corporation and a consortium led by MSC Korea, MGM’s exclusive licensee for theme park development in Korea.

The £860m (AUS$1.8bn, 1.1bn euro) MGM Studio Park Korea will be the first MGM theme park in Asia and will be developed on a 1.5million sq m site next to the airport. It is currently scheduled to open in 2011.

Jin-Wook Choi, CEO of MSC Korea, said: “We have already completed an agreement with MGM, economic feasibility studies, and much of the master planning.

“We now have to begin the detailed project design and construction. When MGM Studio Park Korea is completed in 2011, it will open a new chapter in Korea’s entertainment and leisure industry.”