Global buyers, including Swiss biotech company Lonza and Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com, are visiting South Korea. The government aims to facilitate 4,500 export consultations between 1,400 promising domestic companies and overseas buyers, targeting approximately $200 million in export contracts.
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy will host the largest comprehensive export consultation event in South Korea, '2026 Export Boom-Up Korea,' at KINTEX in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, from October 21 for two days. This event will feature participation from 530 global companies and 1,400 domestic firms, with the government facilitating around 4,500 export consultations and 100 memorandums of understanding (MOUs) to achieve the $200 million export contract goal.
Launched in 2015, Export Boom-Up Korea invites influential overseas buyers to South Korea for one-on-one consultations with domestic companies. This year, the focus is on expanding participation from regional companies and supporting new growth industries such as bio and consumer goods, as well as linking national industrial exhibitions and regional consultation meetings.
In particular, over 50% of participating companies are from local regions, aligning with the government's regional growth strategy. This initiative aims to broaden consultation opportunities for regional companies with overseas buyers, which tend to concentrate in the metropolitan area.
Numerous overseas buyers from emerging sectors such as bio, cosmetics, and food are also participating. Among the buyers, 240 are from the K-beauty, food, and content sectors, while 120 are from the bio sector, 100 from AI convergence, 50 from defense, and 20 from energy.
Notable participating companies include Lonza, JD.com, and Japan's Mitsubishi Electric. Lonza plans to discuss collaboration on production technologies for new drug candidates with domestic biotech firms. JD.com will hold consultations aimed at entering the Chinese market for K-consumer goods.
Mitsubishi Electric is seeking partnerships with Korean companies in the smart factory sector. Other participants include Toyota Tsusho's subsidiary Tomen Device and Brazilian defense company CBC Defense, both exploring new business opportunities with domestic firms.
This is not the first time the government has supported export market diversification through Export Boom-Up Korea. Last year, the event was held nationwide in conjunction with the APEC summit in Gyeongju, attracting over 4,000 overseas buyers and more than 6,900 domestic companies, resulting in on-site contracts and MOUs totaling $430 million.
This year, the government is also working to reduce regional and temporal constraints by linking consultations with 11 industrial exhibitions nationwide. In Daegu and North Chungcheong Province, overseas buyers will visit local companies for export consultations. A consultation event connecting 65 local consumer goods companies with Chinese buyers was held in Daegu on October 19, and another consultation for 138 beauty and beauty device companies is scheduled for October 22 in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province.
The 'M.AX CON,' discussing the AI transformation of manufacturing, will also take place. This event will feature discussions on AI factories, industrial robots, physical AI, and autonomous manufacturing, led by experts including Professor Raffaello D'Andrea from ETH Zurich and Park Min-woo, president of Hyundai Motor Group.
Kang Gam-chan, head of the Trade and Investment Bureau at the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, stated, "As the era of $1 trillion in exports becomes visible, we will continue to expand the export base to enable more industries and regional companies to enter the global market. I hope Export Boom-Up Korea provides our companies with opportunities to discover new markets and partners, while allowing overseas buyers to meet competitive Korean companies and products."
* This article has been translated by AI.
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