KOTRA scrambling to bolster sagging exports

By Lee Hyo-sik

KOTRA CEO Kim Jae-hong

Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) will mobilize all its resources to help prop up the nation’s faltering exports, the company CEO said Wednesday.

The state-run export promoter initially plans to organize trade fairs at home and abroad over the next two months to bolster demand for made-in-Korea products in foreign markets.

“We just received an additional 25 billion won ($22 million) from the government and plan to use it to expand our overseas marketing and other activities to increase overseas demand for Korean products,” KOTRA CEO Kim Jae-hong said during a press conference at the company’s headquarters in southern Seoul, Wednesday.

“We will hold the Boom-up Korea Week here in November and other events to help local exporters meet with foreign buyers. We will also host trade exhibitions in the United Arab Emirates, Vietnam and India to raise buyer interest in a range of Korean products.”

Kim expressed concern over the deteriorating global trade environment, stressing that domestic exporters should double their efforts to maintain market share. In the first nine months of 2016, Korea’s exports declined 8.5 percent from the same period a year earlier.

China’s declining demand for intermediate goods from overseas is the main culprit for Korea’s falling outbound shipments this year, according to Kim, who said local firms should shift their focus to cosmetics and other consumer goods sought by increasingly wealthy Chinese people.

“I believe the time is over for Korean exporters to sell intermediate goods to China as the world’s second-largest economy has invested significantly to produce many parts and components on its own,” he said. “In addition, increasing protectionism in the United States, India and China has also hit Korea’s export sector hard. But nonetheless, we have to tide over unfavorable conditions and expand our global market share.”

Domestic firms should focus more on the United States, India and Southeast Asia where consumer demand has been relatively strong, the CEO said.

“At the same time, they should target China’s rapidly growing consumer market,” he said. “Iran and Myanmar, which recently emerged from isolation, could also be lucrative markets for us.”

Kim projected that Korea’s exports will grow in 2017, mostly on a technical rebound, stressing that KOTRA will spare no effort to enable exporters to expand their presence abroad.