KITA Executive Vice Chairman Han Jin-hyun looks at products and solutions, produced by startups at KITAx Startup Innovation Demo Day. (Photo: KITA)

Korea International Trade Association (KITA), celebrating 74th anniversary this year, held “KITAx Startup Innovation Demo Day” to explore startups’ innovative products and services, applicable to work related to the provision of support to exporters as well as importers.

Among about 150 people on hand at the event were KITA Chairman Kim Young-ju, Vice Chairman Park Hae-rin of Omni System, KITA Executive Vice Chairman Han Jin-hyun, and officials from trade-related organizations such as KITA, Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA), Korea SMEs and Startup Agency (KOSOME), Korea Trade Insurance Corp. (K-sure), Seoul Main Customs, KTNET, and City Airport Limousine Terminal.

The participants watched as 12 finalized startups made presentations on their innovative products and services.

The startups introduced innovative technologies and services, including logistics, payment settlement, security, trade contracts, and management support, to the Korean trading industry.

They include MMV’s service connecting global overseas logistics firms, K-Logis’ joint logistics contract system, Kiwontech’s e-mail security solution designed to prevent trade fraud, Law & Good’s platform connecting SMEs and lawyers, and Moin’s blockchain-based overseas remittance service.

Each department of KITA, which has selected candidate collaborative companies, is intensively considering whether their innovative technologies and services will be applied to projects to support the trade industry and prior stage of SMEs’ exports and imports.

Innovative services, which successfully passed proof of concept (PoC) and verification, will be introduced immediately to support trade for KITA’s 70,000 members.

President Min Myung-ki of Law and Good, specializing in legal consulting services targeting SMEs, said, “Contactless platforms designed to offer legal services with reasonable prices has been built.”

Law and Good plans to closely consult with KITA to establish itself as the trade industry’s representative legal consulting platform so that it can be used by SMEs with ease, he added.

KITA will announce a list of winners among the 12 startups, based on outcomes of site evaluations and on-line votes. The finalists will be entitled to move into the StartupBranch for one year.

The 12 innovative products and services that have made it onto the final stage will be publicized to trade organizations, trading companies and investors.

Park Sun-kyung, head of KITA’s Innovative Ecosystem Office, said. “The first open innovation among trade organizations will be a win-win strategy in which it brings about work efficiency and innovation to trade-related organizations and scale-up opportunities to SMEs, and it is evaluated to serve as an opportunity to upgrade trade, a pillar of the Korean economy, a step upward, Park said.

KITA has been implementing open innovation projects to reinvent Korean and foreign small- and large-sized companies as well as Gangnam Ward Office, COEX and other organizations.

In the second half of this year, KITA plans to promote cooperation with Daewon, Hoban, and Dongwon groups.

KITA Hosts Webinar on Korea’s SME policies in Responses to COVID-19

Korea International Trade Association (KITA) held a webinar to introduce Korea’s policies to provide support to SMEs against the spread of COVID-19 in cooperation with OECD Korea Policy Center on June 23.

The webinar was designed to publicize Korea’s examples of providing support to SMEs to overcome hardships, caused by the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, to the UNDP office of each country and foreign missions in Korea.

CEO You Jae-hyung of SolGent, a Korean SME and producer of COVID-19 test kits, said, “As production had surged 73 percent than in the past and logistics movement had been curtailed by 34 percent thanks to the government support to build a smart factory, so a mass production system had been established.”

SolGent, being selected as one of the beneficiaries of the state joint brand project “Brand K,” is devoting itself to exporting K-quarantine abroad, he added.

Cho Hak-hee, head of KITA’s International Business Division, said KITA will endeavor to publicize the strengths of “K-quarantine” and tap the overseas markets by implementing global public procurement projects in cooperation of UNDP down the road.