Invest KOREA

Newly opens Customer Service Headquarters, expands focus on job creation as part of extensive reshuffle
Reinforces capacity in utilizing trade and investment big data to upgrade services

The Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) is stepping up efforts to diversify overseas marketing support services for Korean companies and expand its job creation initiative. To better meet the diversifying demands of overseas marketing support services for Korean companies during the fourth industrial revolution, and contribute to the creation of jobs in Korea and abroad through the promotion of trade and foreign investment, the agency is undergoing a major reorganization that will take effect on the first day of August.

At the press conference held last June in commemoration of KOTRA’s 55th anniversary, president & CEO Kim Jaehong announced that the agency will “dramatically improve its modes of operation and services system so that an increase in trade and foreign investment can lead to job creation and economic recovery, serving as a driving force for the Korean economy.” The reorganization is considered a practical measure taken to that end, whereby the agency raises its level of social responsibility and value as a public institution by actively implementing the government’s employment-centered economic policies. Of particular note is how the agency’s domestic and foreign job creation support services will be expanded, forming a stronger connection to its main role of promoting the country’s trade and investment infrastructure.

In particular, the agency is opening a new Customer Service Headquarters, integrating its two existing channels for providing customer services, and reinforcing its capacity in related areas, such as for providing customized support to each individual company. Online and offline contacts with clients, too, are set to be merged into the Overseas Business Consulting Center, a one-stop trade and investment consulting service system designed to enhance the convenience of client firms, while customized consulting for individual firms will be expanded though the big data analysis platform KOTRA Overseas Market Big Bot.

To promote job creation, the former Global Employment Office, which had been exclusively in charge of providing support for overseas employment, has been expanded under a new name: the Job Creation Department. In addition, KOTRA plans not only to build job creation strategies in connection to the agency’s key functions, and expand K-Move Centers, overseas centers in charge of finding new employment opportunities and helping companies hire local talent, but also to contribute to creating a wider range of jobs in Korea, by assisting startups as they develop and make inroads into foreign markets. Meanwhile, the newly-established Foreign Firm Employment Support Team will provide systematic support so that foreign investment, a major axis of Korea’s economic growth, leads to a greater number of jobs in the country.

Moreover, KOTRA will reinforce its departments that are exclusively in charge of securing future export markets and supporting new export industries. The new Strategic Market Support Office is set to strengthen the agency’s efforts in finding alternative markets to China, such as in India, Southeast Asia and the Middle East, while the Service Industry Promotion Center, also newly created, will expand the agency’s initiative to support service sector businesses, known for creating a larger number of jobs than other industries, enter foreign markets.

Kim noted, “As industries begin to converge on a full scale during the fourth industrial revolution, the demands of companies that hope to enter foreign markets are also diversifying,” adding that “the renewed organization will focus on raising its competence to provide clients with customized support so that greater exports, corporate growth and job creation reinforce each other in a virtuous cycle.

Source: Invest KOREA (Aug. 1, 2017)