Seoul City and KOTRA Join Forces to Attract Overseas Investment... Supporting Innovative Companies' Global Expansion

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[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] The Seoul Investment Agency is creating a win-win model where it attracts investment from overseas companies, and KOTRA supports the overseas expansion of competitive Korean SMEs and startups.

On the 18th, Seoul City announced that it signed a business agreement with the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) in the presence of Mayor Oh Se-hoon and KOTRA President Yoo Jung-yeol. Seoul plans to actively promote investment attraction in new industries such as fintech, bio, and artificial intelligence by utilizing KOTRA’s overseas trade office infrastructure. Starting next year, Seoul will dispatch city employees to KOTRA’s overseas trade offices to begin discovering local networks.

First, Seoul will lead investment attraction for the ‘Five Core Projects of Seoul’ and work with KOTRA’s 36 major overseas trade offices to discover local networks to attract key overseas companies to areas such as Yeouido, Magok, and Yangjae. KOTRA will identify investors interested in Korean companies and Seoul, linking them to the Seoul Investment Agency, which will provide one-stop support covering all business areas from discovering companies in industries of interest to investors, to corporate establishment, labor, and accounting.

KOTRA will focus on discovering competitive Korean SMEs and startups in the global market and supporting their overseas expansion. To this end, Seoul will identify domestic technology companies that meet local needs and recommend them to KOTRA, which will concentrate on continuous investment attraction (IR) activities using its overseas trade office infrastructure to facilitate overseas expansion and investment attraction for Korean companies.

Seoul City and KOTRA will concretize cooperation in five areas based on these contents: ▲exchange of data and information on trade and investment trends and related policies ▲promotion of exchange and cooperation projects to attract foreign investment and returning companies ▲staff exchanges and utilization of facilities and infrastructure between the two parties to achieve the above goals ▲various cooperation projects and initiatives to support the overseas expansion of Seoul’s SMEs and startups ▲and other matters recognized as necessary for regional economic revitalization and international and cultural exchange, ensuring continuous exchange and cooperation.

Seoul plans to jointly participate in ‘Collision,’ a leading North American tech conference known as the Olympics of the tech world, scheduled for June this year, to introduce promising companies to overseas investors. Seoul and KOTRA will select promising companies in tech fields such as AI and big data, recruit investors from the North American region, and jointly hold local IR events to facilitate practical investment attraction on site.

Additionally, networking will be strengthened in the Middle East, Asia, and other regions, focusing on areas for market development by dispatching Seoul city employees to KOTRA’s overseas trade offices starting in 2023. In the long term, the goal is to secure networks in various hubs such as Hong Kong and Singapore to fully support active investment attraction and the overseas expansion of Korean companies.

Mayor Oh said, “I believe that the growth of innovative companies and creating good jobs that young people hope for is the mission of Seoul City and its mayor. Through Seoul’s competitiveness and cooperation with KOTRA’s overseas networks, we expect to nurture globally competitive companies and attract overseas capital.”

KOTRA President Yoo Jung-yeol said, “Through this business agreement, we expect to discover competitive domestic SMEs and startups, and KOTRA will actively support the globalization of domestic companies.”

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