Invest KOREA

MOTIE · KOTRA Held a "Briefing Session on ASEAN and India Export Market" on March 20

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (Minister Ahn Duk-geun) and KOTRA (President Yu Jeong-yeol) held the "2024 Major Export Markets (ASEAN, India) Briefing" at the Grand InterContinental Seoul Parnas in Samseong-dong, Seoul on March 20.

The briefing session, which was held in connection with the "2024 Commercial Attaché Meeting" (March 18-20), was attended by overseas commercial attaché s and KOTRA staff as speakers. They conveyed the voices of the field about the Indian market, which represents the Global South, and ASEAN, Korea's major export market. More than 100 Korean companies applied for pre-participation in this briefing session, confirming keen interest in the ASEAN and Indian markets.

Deputy Minister for Trade Yang Byeong-nae said, "despite challenging circumstances, Korea has maintained upward trends for five months until February this year since achieving both export and trade balance surpluses in October last year," adding that "this briefing session, which explains the strategy to enter the ASEAN and Indian markets that show definitive growth prospects, will provide practical help to exports of Korean companies."

Kim Jun-han, a leader of KOTRA's America and CIS team, introduced the issues and regional trends collected through the regular monitoring system. With the importance of Southeast Asia increasing due to supply chain reorganization, he asked to pay attention to changing local trends from cost-effectiveness to value-consumption driven by rising income. In addition, he suggested to use the development of e-commerce and the spread of the Korean Wave as an opportunity to expand exports in Southwest Asia.

Jo Sung-joong, a commercial attaché in India, said "India is a huge market," adding that "it is time to approach the young Indian market, where more than half of the population is under the age of 35, with diversification of export items such as cosmetics." Meanwhile, Min Moon-ki, a commercial attaché in Vietnam, said "companies of the US, China, and Europe are expected to continue the expansion to Vietnam's supply chain," focusing on diverse business opportunities in Vietnam as a global main production base.

In addition, former director general of KOTRA's Surabaya Business Center, said, "Although Indonesia is a country that aspires to become an advanced country with policies to foster the manufacturing industry such as Making Indonesia 4.0, its local business practices are very complicated, as shown by the export volume quota system," adding, "When entering Indonesia, it's better targeting specific region than the country." Kim Il-kyung, former deputy director general of KOTRA's Bangkok Business Center, then introduced know-how to enter the local market using Korea's strengths in IT such as smart city technology and edutech, by taking advantage of Thailand's digital transformation trends such as its push for digital government.



Source: KOTRA (2024.03.20.)