KOTRA Achieves $600 Million Export Results in Non-Face-to-Face Overseas Marketing During the 'Corona Era'

Additional Support for Over 16,000 Small and Medium Enterprises via Non-Face-to-Face Methods Since March

Kwon Pyung-oh, President of KOTRA (right), visits an online trade consultation site and greets a buyer with whom he is discussing a deal via video call (Photo by KOTRA).

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Ji-hee] KOTRA has seen results from the non-face-to-face services it introduced in March to respond to the spread of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19). Over the past six months, KOTRA has additionally supported 16,309 of our small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and mid-sized companies through non-face-to-face methods, achieving 1,490 contracts and $599 million in exports.

On the 21st, KOTRA announced that it supported 6,160 SMEs and mid-sized companies through video consultations, a representative remote and non-face-to-face overseas marketing service. The total number of consultations Korean companies conducted with buyers reached 16,594, which is 30 times the 558 consultations during the same period last year.

As interest in e-commerce platforms has increased due to COVID-19, KOTRA is supporting Korean companies to enter global online platforms through business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions. The number of companies receiving this service more than doubled compared to last year, reaching 1,252. Among them, 644 companies succeeded in entering the platforms.

To minimize the gap in sales channels caused by the closure of air routes, KOTRA also introduced the "Emergency Branch Office" service in March. Branch office service is where KOTRA staff act as overseas branch offices locally on behalf of companies that find it difficult to travel abroad. A total of 495 export companies joined this emergency branch office project, resulting in contracts worth $200 million.

In April, aiming to become the overseas branch office for 10,000 SMEs and mid-sized companies, KOTRA subdivided the project into domestic company-exclusive branch office service and online branch office service. Since its launch in July, the online branch office service attracted 3,068 companies, resulting in contracts worth $65 million. As of this month, the total number of export companies subscribed to the branch office service is 8,762.

To expand new export routes, KOTRA is also innovating its existing trade and investment promotion services. It is promoting a KOTRA-style digital transformation divided into three areas: customers, business, and operations. A roadmap for this will be established within the year, and full-scale digital transformation will begin next year.

Kwon Pyung-oh, President of KOTRA, said, “Since COVID-19, we have urgently organized non-face-to-face export marketing services and supported our companies for six months. Going forward, we will strengthen services tailored to changes in market-specific demand and consumption patterns to turn the ‘new normal’ into an opportunity for our exports to leap forward.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.