US Economic Delegation 32% Say "Greatest Achievement of State Visit is Building New Networks"

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The economic delegation participating in President Yoon Suk-yeol's visit to the United States identified the highest achievements of this state visit as the "full-scale establishment of a global pivotal state" at the national level and the "building of new networks" at the corporate level.

The Federation of Korean Industries (hereinafter FKI) announced on the 4th the results of a survey on the achievements of the economic delegation, conducted among 122 companies that accompanied the president on his state visit to the U.S.

The economic delegation ranked "the full-scale establishment of a global pivotal state through strengthening the global comprehensive strategic alliance" (33.3%) as the top achievement of the president's state visit. This was followed by attracting U.S. companies' investment in Korea (23.3%) and strengthening cooperation in advanced industries (22.2%). In fact, the joint statement by the two heads of state highlighted the Korea-U.S. alliance as a core axis for peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region beyond the two countries, and this visit successfully attracted investments worth $5.9 billion (approximately 7.9 trillion KRW) in advanced industry sectors. The main business achievements cited by companies participating in the economic delegation included ▲building new corporate networks (32.2%) ▲enhancing understanding of the U.S. market environment (28.9%) ▲seeking business opportunities through signing MOUs with local companies (27.8%).

Our companies perceive the improvement of Korea-U.S. relations as beneficial to corporate management. Among the surveyed companies, 93.3% responded that the improvement of Korea-U.S. relations helps improve the business environment and business performance (58.9% strongly agree, 34.4% agree). The most beneficial aspects were identified as exports to the U.S. and local sales in the U.S. (27.5%), followed by advanced technology exchange between Korea-U.S. companies (19.3%) and joint ventures and M&A between Korea-U.S. companies (14.0%).

Regarding mutual cooperation tasks between Korean and U.S. companies, responding to global supply chain issues was the most cited at 31.1%, followed by signing science and technology R&D agreements (19.2%) and fostering future human resources and talent exchange (16.9%). As a policy task to maintain continuous relations between Korea and the U.S., companies prioritized establishing a close supply chain cooperation network (28.4%). The FKI analyzed this as stemming from increasing global supply chain uncertainties. Other policy tasks ranked included consolidating the Korea-U.S. global comprehensive strategic alliance (25.0%) and supporting next-generation technology cooperation and talent exchange (19.9%).

Kim Bong-man, Director of the International Headquarters at FKI, stated, "At the private sector level, we must create continuous cooperation channels by strengthening networks between companies of the two countries and discover new growth engines for our companies." He added, "The FKI will also actively support our companies' global management by making full use of available U.S. networks such as the Korea-U.S. Business Council."

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