The government has come up with a detailed blueprint at the inter-ministerial level, encompassing export targets for key items such as semiconductors, automobiles, and plants, to achieve this year’s export goal of US$700 billion. It includes the largest-ever support measures to accelerate progress, aiming for swift implementation.
On Feb. 28, Minister of Trade, Industry & Energy Ahn Duk-geun presided over the “Public-Private Joint Export Expansion Strategy Meeting.” During the meeting, discussions were held and decisions made regarding strategies to expand exports across various ministries, support measures to enhance plant orders, achievements, and plans for resolving challenges faced at export sites.
South Korea’s exports experienced a turning point towards surplus in September last year, and from October onwards they achieved both export surplus and trade balance surplus simultaneously. This upward momentum in exports contributed to driving economic growth in the latter half of the year. Based on this upward trend, the government has developed a detailed blueprint to achieve this year’s export target after setting a record-high export goal of US$700 billion last month.
Considering opportunity factors by four global mega trends such as supply chain restructuring, carbon neutrality, digital transformation, and demographic changes and strategic factors in winning contracts in nuclear power and defense procurement, the government has identified 20 key export items that can yield maximum export performance. Additionally, target markets have been selected strategically for each of these key export items.
The 20 key export items, including semiconductors, automobiles, and agricultural and fishery products, will be supported through efforts such as expanding production capacity, securing cutting-edge technologies, addressing trade issues like the Inflation Reduction Agreement (IRA) and Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), and providing comprehensive support in finance and marketing. For the nine target markets, including the United States and ASEAN countries, linked to the key export items, significant efforts will be made to enhance tailored support by region, such as discovering new collaborative projects and exploring market opportunities, in order to expand market presence.
Trade finance has been increased by an additional 5.5 trillion won to a total of 360.2 trillion won, reflecting proactive responses to new demand. This increase will support promising defense, nuclear, and plant projects in the Middle East and Africa, expand liquidity support for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in exports due to continued high interest rates, and enhance group insurance to establish export safety nets for SMEs.
The government is launching full-scale cooperation on four major export projects by ministries. It will establish a collaborative system with relevant ministries such as the Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries; the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries; the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism; and the Ministry of Health and Welfare. It plans to expand the establishment of dedicated booths for each ministry at representative exhibitions and consultations such as Boom-up Korea and Seoul Food Fair, and further develop the Integrated Korea Pavilion at famous international exhibitions such as CES and MWC.
For large-scale procurement projects such as defense, nuclear power, and plants, joint financial support measures will be developed for each project, and a logistics system for fresh food cold chains will be established by utilizing overseas joint logistics centers under the jurisdiction of each ministry. Collaboration will also be pursued for obtaining overseas certifications for cosmetics, medical devices and halal food.
The Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) will be transformed into a cross-ministry export support platform. Under this initiative, trade offices will be fully opened to export support agencies in other ministries that require overseas support, and trade offices specializing in promising export sectors such as nuclear power, plants, biotechnology, and smart farms will be expanded from 168 to 193 locations to provide support for export activities.
Overseas plant exports have set a challenging target of US$33 billion for this year and aim to contribute to expanding exports. In the Middle East, efforts will focus on visualizing the follow-up results of top-level economic diplomacy last year. Additionally, in new markets such as Central Asia and Africa, efforts will be made to expand procurement support through top-level and high-level economic diplomacy.