The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) hosted a session to explain strategies to attract each industry’s investments for the year 2025, with 29 local government and free economic zone representatives in attendance.
The event took place at KOTRA headquarters in Yeomgok-dong, Seoul, on Jan. 22.
The session was designed to share investment attraction outlooks and strategies for this year and discuss ways of promoting cooperation between Invest KOREA and local governments, amid expected changes in global commerce conditions in the wake of the inauguration of the U.S. President Donald Trump administration.
Despite outside and inside hardships, Korea attracted $34.57 billion in foreign direct investments last year, the best-ever amount.
Amid rising uncertainties, it is more significant than ever to cooperate with local governments to maintain growth momentum in the global investment attraction environment.
The session is expected to contribute not only to ramping up cooperation in national investment attraction, but also the non-Seoul metropolitan area’s attracting of investments.
In the morning session, each industry’s project manager from Invest KOREA analyzed the 2025 investment attraction environment across nine industrial segments, including ICT, startup, semiconductor, future car, logistics & distribution, and regional development and shared the direction of investments and strategies local governments require.
Experts had a discussion session on what issues would have a great impact on attracting investments this year.
They discussed insights into attracting investments, such as the economy, commerce trade in the Trump 2.0 era, subsequent supply chains changes, and AI technology innovation trends and their impact on the overall industries.
In the afternoon session, industry project managers of Invest KOREA held one-on-one negotiations with local governments.
Industry project managers led negotiations with local government and free economic zone officials to share the pending issues of projects and develop collaboration projects.
MOTIE and KOTRA Support Operation of Integrated Korea Pavilion at CES 2025
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) and KOTRA operated “Integrated Korea Pavilion,” the biggest-ever pavilion, at CES 2025 that took place in Las Vegas from Jan. 7 to Jan. 10.
CES is the world’s biggest IT and home appliance fair. The exhibition was attended by some 900 Korean companies, including Korean global leaders, such as Samsung, LG, Hyundai Motor and SK, and occupants of the Integrated Korea Pavilion as well as some 455 Korean SMEs and middle market enterprises.
The Integrated Korea Pavilion accommodated 36 Korean entities, including KOTRA.
The Eureka Park had 308 Korean companies while the Global Pavilion housed 137 Korean companies.
Some 45 percent of the nation’s total participants at CES 2025 participated in the fair as “Team Korea” at the Integrated Korea Pavilion.
The Life home appliance sector accounted for 18 percent, followed by digital health with a 17 percent share, AI with 16 percent and smart home with 12 percent.
KOTRA held a seminar inviting local experts at Jan. 6 and offer the latest information to the participating companies prior to the opening of the fair.
Key-note speakers, including the head of the industry analysis team at the Consumer Technology Association, the host of the fair, and a managing director at Morgan Stanley, gave presentations on outlooks of the U.S. consumer home appliance market and ways of attracting equity investments.
“The K-Innovation Pitching Challenge” took place in cooperation with Startup-Junkie, a U.S. accelerator, on Jan. 8.
Some 20 companies, which matched beforehand for open innovation made presentations targeting U.S. major global leaders, including Walmart, JB Hunt and IBM. Korean startups were given the chance to have in-depth exchanges at a following networking reception.
MOTIE Minister Ahn Duk-geun said, “Amid domestic political difficulties, composing the Integrated Korea Pavilion, the biggest-ever one, at an global exhibition like CES for the second straight year has showed the power of ‘Team Korea,’ which gets stronger amid crises, and from now on, we will redouble efforts to maintain overseas credit ratings and export momentum.”
KOTRA President Kang Kyung-sung said, “CES 2025, the world’s biggest consumer home appliance fair, is a good chance to not only explore business opportunities, but also look at the latest technology trends, and KOTRA will offer full support so that innovative outcomes explored at CES may lead to exports.”
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