KOTRA President Kwon Pyung-oh, executives and trade office heads attend an integrated trade and investment strategy meeting to explore the Middle Eastern and African markets in which President Kwon presided over in Dubai, the UAE, on July 14. (Photos: KOTRA)

President Kwon Pyung-oh of Korea Investment-Trade Promotion Agency (KOTRA) said the agency will focus on policies to build a “survival partnership” with Middle Eastern countries, which have been working to diversify industrial growth, moving away from the economic growth dependence on natural resources.
The KOTRA head made the statement on July 14 at the conclusion of the Expanded Strategy Meeting for the Middle East and Africa Region, where the heads of the agency’s branches throughout the Middle East were gathered in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The KOTRA CEO stressed the need for the diversification of the export market for Korean goods away from “G2” countries, which are going through trade upheaval, although exports from Korea continue to contribute to the growth of the economy by posting the biggest first half export record in history.
Kwon emphasized that the Korean exporters would be able to boost their shipments further to countries in the Middle East and Africa if they make the products tailor-made for the needs of their major markets in those regions by employing diverse cooperative platforms such as B2B among the business firms, G2G among the governments, and B2G among business firms and governments.
A total of 21 KOTRA branch heads got their heads together to discuss the best policies to boost the Korean exports to the region which has been preparing for the post-oil age by diversifying their industries.
They agreed to review the economic growth of each country in the region and find out the changes in demands especially those for consumer products with growth of online markets in tandem with the expansion of their middle classes in the countries in the region, the creation of jobs taking advantage of the startup platforms in the region, as part of the three major strategies to spear head the Korean exports in the region. The Mutual Survival Partnership should be pursued to spur Korean exports in Saudi Arabia and UAE.
KOTRA will extend its support to Korean exporters to take advantage of Saudi Arabia and UAE’s moves to further develop their downstream petrochemical industries and set up metal and machinery manufacturing firms to further diversify their industry.
South Korea's trade promotion agency said June 14 it will boost exports by offering further "necessary" services to small trading companies. Under the "export voucher" program, the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) has started offering a variety of services mainly to the country's smaller exporters. It said preparations for the program have been underway for the past year with the first companies benefiting from this endeavor last month.
KOTRA currently offers about 3,000 services to small and medium-sized export companies and plans to increase the number of services in 2018.