Daegu Records Highest Ever Exports This Year Amid Recession... Anode Material Producer L&F Receives $1 Billion Export Tower Award

Daegu City Hall Sangyeok Office.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Koo Dae-sun] On the 8th, Daegu City, Gyeongsangbuk-do Province, and the Korea International Trade Association held the ‘59th Daegu Gyeongbuk Trade Day’ event at the Daegu Inter-Burgo Hotel to encourage companies that achieved the Export Tower and businesspeople awarded for export merit.

In the Daegu and Gyeongbuk regions, 118 companies received the Export Tower (Daegu 41, Gyeongbuk 77), 44 individuals received government export merit awards (Daegu 17, Gyeongbuk 27), and 36 individuals received regional export merit awards (Daegu 10, Gyeongbuk 26), enjoying the honor of being awarded.

Despite the difficult global trade environment such as the Russia-Ukraine war and the global financial crisis, Daegu’s exports increased by 101.5% to China and 19.5% to the United States (compared to the same month last year) as of October this year, recording the only double-digit export growth rate nationwide (870 million dollars, 32.4%↑), ranking first. This year’s export amount is expected to reach a record high of 10.6 billion dollars.

At the ‘59th Daegu·Gyeongbuk Trade Day’ commemorative ceremony held under the slogan ‘Challenge the Trade Power! Leap forward, Republic of Korea!’, L&F (CEO Choi Su-an) became the first company in Daegu to receive the 1 billion dollar tower.

Also, including Ecopro EM (CEO Park Jong-hwan), POSCO Steelion Co., Ltd. (CEO Yoon Yang-su) (both 500 million dollar towers), Daedong (CEO Kim Jun-sik, Won Yoo-hyun), PNT (CEO Kim Jun-seop) (both 400 million dollar towers), Ecopro Innovation (CEO Kim Yoon-tae), Geosang (CEO Moon Je-hee), Megagen Implant (CEO Park Kwang-beom) (all 100 million dollar towers), a total of 118 companies were honored with the Export Tower award.

Additionally, Daesung Hightech Chairman Choi Woo-gak received the highest honor, the Gold Tower Industrial Medal, and 44 people including Samkwang CEO Kim Jin-woo, POSCO Executive Director Kim Kyung-han (both Bronze Tower Industrial Medals), Jewoo Techno CEO Kim Chi-hyun (Industrial Medal), Youngjin Hightech CEO Kim Young-ho, Hwangjo CEO Moon Byung-tae, Bogeun CEO Park Sung-won, and Yungjin Director Lee Sang-yeol (all Presidential Citations) received government export merit awards.

Following that, two companies, Gungjeonbang (CEO Song Cheong-ho) and Lube Cam Korea (CEO Lee Seung-woo), along with eight individuals including NUC Electronics Manager Kang Hong-seok, JS Techwin CEO Seo Jun-seok, and CIS Center Director Baek Seung-geun, received export merit commendations from Daegu City.

L&F, the first in Daegu to receive the 1 billion dollar tower, succeeded in producing cathode materials, a core material for secondary batteries, with domestic capital for the first time, achieving the designation of this technology as a national core technology.

In particular, by successfully mass-producing the world’s first nickel content 90% cathode material (NCMA), sales surged by more than 1000% in two years, and export performance also rapidly grew by over 400%, from 400 million dollars to 1.7 billion dollars this year.

Daesung Hightech Chairman Choi Woo-gak, who received the Gold Tower Industrial Medal, localized the Swiss-type automatic lathe, which embodies difficult-to-machine material processing technology, and exported it to 25 countries. While Japan dominates the global Swiss-type automatic lathe market, the localization of this technology created an import substitution effect of 34.5 billion won over three years, and was recognized for contributing to the status and technological independence of the domestic precision machinery industry.

Hong Joon-pyo, Mayor of Daegu, said, “I express my gratitude to local businesspeople who achieved remarkable results despite the adverse conditions of the global economic recession,” and added, “We will focus our policy capabilities and efforts to help local companies overcome difficult economic situations and grow even further.”

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