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S. Korea offers tax breaks for nose jobs, breast augmentation

August 19, 2015
(Yonhap)

A South Korean ad for plastic surgery (Yonhap)

The plastic surgery capital of the world is stepping up its game to attract even more clients.

South Korea is now offering tax breaks to tourists for undergoing cosmetic surgery procedures. The government plans to give 10 percent of the costs back to these consumers.

The procedures listed in the new policy include breast augmentation, liposuction, nose jobs and liposuction just to name a few according to Bloomberg News.

The motive behind the plan is to boost tourism after the industry was hit hard during the Middle Eastern Respiratory Virus (MERS) outbreak in which 36 lives were lost and hundreds more were infected. In fact, the country saw a 40 percent drop in tourists compared to a year before in the month of June.

Relative to other nations, South Korea has the highest amount of plastic surgeries done per capita — almost double that of the United States, which is second on the list — according to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.

Cosmetic surgeries are a steadily growing part of South Korea’s GDP. In between 2010 and 2013 the number of procedures tripled from 81,789 to 266, 501.