Strengthening Support for K-Quarantine Supplies Exports... 'Establishment of Dedicated Vouchers and Funding Support Programs'

Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy's Customized Export Support Plan for K-Quarantine

(Photo)

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Joo Sang-don] The government has decided to strengthen customized export support for 'K-Quarantine' related products, which have been successfully recognized in the international community. While selecting 10 core quarantine products to focus support on, it will also establish funding support programs such as a 3 billion KRW scale K-Quarantine exclusive export voucher and 10 billion KRW scale export finance within this year.

On the 1st, the government held the 7th Innovation Growth Big 3 Promotion Meeting at the Government Seoul Office and announced the 'K-Quarantine Customized Export Support Plan' containing these details.

Due to the rapid growth of the global quarantine product market caused by COVID-19, the export performance of our quarantine products such as masks and diagnostic kits has greatly expanded. Based on this, the medical device trade balance recorded a surplus for the first time last year, reaching 4.9 billion USD.

Accordingly, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy prepared this plan, which includes actively discovering and supporting new promising items, establishing K-Quarantine exclusive export support, and a cross-ministerial full-cycle corporate support system to continue this trend.

First, considering domestic technological capabilities and overseas market conditions, masks, diagnostic kits, walk-through testing booths, and artificial intelligence (AI) video diagnostics were selected as the 10 core quarantine products, and customized support will be strengthened at each stage of market entry. Items such as masks and diagnostic kits, which currently have large export volumes but are expected to face intensified competition due to small technological gaps between products, will focus on discovering demand in emerging promising markets linked to official development assistance (ODA) and large projects in infrastructure and energy sectors. For markets already entered such as the United States and the European Union (EU), plans are to continuously expand our companies' market share by establishing differentiated marketing strategies utilizing the K-Quarantine brand.

Items like low dead space (LDS) syringes and walk-through booths, which currently have small export volumes mainly focused on the domestic market but possess technological and production competitiveness, will receive close support for technical evaluation by testing and certification institutions for acquiring national approvals such as from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), consulting on test standards, and linkage with evaluation departments. In addition, efforts will be made to secure global demand response capabilities by establishing mass production systems such as smart factory dissemination, and initial market development will be actively supported using overseas trade offices.

For future exports, promising but still under development and demonstration items such as innovative diagnostic kits and AI video diagnostic devices will be supported to secure track records and enhance product reliability of our companies through public sector pilot purchases by quarantine headquarters and local governments.

Within existing export support projects, a K-Quarantine track will be established and exclusive export support projects will also be promoted. A K-Quarantine exclusive track (new industry and K-Bio innovation, 2.95 billion KRW in 2021) will be created in the export voucher project, and a 10 billion KRW budget for K-Quarantine will be operated within the new market entry fund (500 billion KRW in 2021). Policy financial institutions such as the Export-Import Bank will offer preferential loan interest rates (up to 1.0 percentage point) and loan limits (up to 10%) to quarantine new deal companies.

Park Jin-gyu, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, said, "With the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic and stockpiling measures of core quarantine products by each country, continuous growth of the global quarantine product market is expected. Through the establishment of this K-Quarantine customized export support plan, we will unite efforts at the whole-of-government level so that our companies can lead the global quarantine product market."

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