A group of leaders of the machinery industry in Korea are shown at the New Year’s reception 

hosted by the Korea Association of Machinery Industry (KOAMI) held at the Grand Ballroom 

of the JW Marriot Hotel in downtown Seoul on Jan. 7. Among the guests were Minister Yoon 

Sang-jick of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and Rep. Cho Jeong-shik of the National Assembly 

Strategy and Finance Committee.(Photo:KOAMI:article by SK Lee)

The Korea Association of Machinery Industry (KOAMI) hosted a New Year’s reception for all “machinery people” at the Grand Ballroom of the JW Marriott Hotel in Seoul, calling on the machinery industry to continue to play a key role in the creation of Korea’s future and coping with various changes along the way.

Among the more than 300 participants were Minister Yoon Sang-jick of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, Rep. Cho Jeong-shik, chairman of the National Assembly Strategy and Finance Committee, who congratulated themselves for Korea’s ascent to 8th in the world in terms of the scale of its machinery industry as well as closer ties among machinery industry people through increased exchanges to start the new year.

Minister Yoon, in his congratulatory speech, said the machinery industry’s exports last year amounted to $46.3 billion, playing a huge role in boosting Korea to 7th globally in terms of exports.

The outlook for machinery exports this year isn’t favorable due to the “Abenomics” policies of Japan and the tapering of the United States’ quantitative easing measures, among the various adverse conditions.

Yoon said the machinery industry should find the ways to develop machinery that doesn’t depend on foreign exchange rates for exports. He said the machinery industry must turn itself into a high value-added industry to cope with the various adversities for exporting its products this year.

What the industry needs to further upgrade its competitive power in global markets is close cooperation among the large and small machinery makers to strengthen itself and emerge as a global player.

Minister Yoon Sang-jick of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy speaks at the 

KOAMI New Year’s reception held on Jan. 7 at JW Marriott Hotel in down town Seoul.

There is a space for the Industrial Reform Campaign 3.0 to enter pushed by the Machinery Industry Companion Growth Promotion Foundation, which the government expects to make a great contribution to the exchange of technologies between large and small machinery makers.

KOAMI Chairman Chung Ji-taek said in his New Year’s speech that the machinery industry has made ceaseless efforts to make Korea a strong nation in the machinery production sector and the 7th largest exporting nation in the world despite various problems such as the global economic slowdown and slackened domestic investments in facilities.

He said that he would like to thank the government for its support of the machinery industry and the people in the industry who worked day and night to realize Korea’s $1-trillion-plus in trade last year for a second year in a row.

Chung said the global economy still has its soft spots, but the United States and the EU have been able to stabilize their economies, while investments in China and the Middle East are projected to rise, which will lead to an increase in demand for machinery.

The KOAMI chairman, however, warned that Korea needed a new model to increase its exports as the trade surplus with China, the biggest importer of Korean goods and services, has been narrowing, and Japan’s low-yen value policy continues to hurt Korea’s exports. China is rapidly closing its technology gap with Korea, while Korea’s annual economic growth only averaged 2.9 percent over the past five years. 

KOAMI will pick the major areas for R&D activities to develop new types of machinery, upgrading machinery designing technologies for manufacturing bases, and building a growth base for the high-tech molding industry with an overriding theme of turning the machinery industry into a high value-added one.