The Korea International Trade Association (KITA, Chairman Jin-sik Yoon) held the '2025 Specialized Trading Company Large and Small Business Joint Export Consultation Meeting' for two days from the 2nd to the 3rd at COEX in Samseong-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, together with major specialized trading companies such as BGF Retail, GS Retail, and Lotte Mart.
This project, now in its fourth year, focuses on supporting domestic and export-oriented companies to develop overseas markets by utilizing the global networks of large corporations' specialized trading companies. In the first half of each year, we invite overseas product planners (MDs) from each large corporation to hold consultation meetings to discover excellent products from promising small and medium-sized companies, and in the second half of the year, we help create actual export results through local marketing utilizing the large corporations' overseas distribution networks.
Domestic and export start-up companies can quickly check local market reactions by utilizing the overseas infrastructure of large companies without establishing separate overseas branches or corporations, thereby efficiently developing export markets.
This year, a total of six large companies participated in the consultation meeting, including Lotte Mart, H Mart, NH Nonghyup Trade, and GS Retail, with BGF Retail and Lotte Home Shopping newly joining. Accordingly, the consultation items were expanded to include character products, stationery, etc., and the overseas promotional events scheduled for the second half of the year were diversified to include Central Asia and Central and South America, strengthening the substance of the business.
This consultation session was attended by 305 domestic and export start-up companies in the ▲food and beverage, ▲daily necessities, ▲cosmetics, ▲home appliances, etc. sectors, and 132 of them passed the document screening and had a total of 256 one-on-one consultations with overseas product planners (MDs) from 6 major companies. The companies that were finally selected after being recognized for their export potential through the consultations will have the opportunity to participate in promotional events held in 10 countries overseas in the second half of this year and introduce their products to local consumers.
Hee-chul Jeong, head of the Trade Promotion Division at the Korea International Trade Association, said, “Due to the delay in the recovery of the domestic market caused by high interest rates and high prices and the increasing uncertainty in the global trade environment, the difficulties of our small and medium-sized enterprises are increasing day by day.” He added, “We will take the lead in securing export markets for promising domestic companies by expanding collaboration with large specialized trading companies with strengths in each industry and export method.”
- See more related articles
You must be logged in to post a comment.