Expectations in New Year
KITA Chairman Kim J.C. pledges all-out support to exporters at New Year reception

Chairman Kim Jae-chul of the Korea International Trade Association, in his new year's speech, said Korea's international trade surpassed the $500 billion level last year, making the country the 12th largest trading nation in the world. It was a meaningful year last year, he recalled, the trade volume paved the way for reaching a threshold of $20,000 in per capita national income as early as possible.
Looking back at the past 50 years in the nation's history, we could see many ups and downs. Poverty dominated the country until the first half of the 20th century. But through our passion and strategies to rebuild the country by becoming a trading nation, we were able to grow to become the 11th largest economy and the 12th largest trading country in the shortest possible time hardly found anywhere else in the world, the KITA chairman said.
This year is also significant in that exports would amount to around $300 billion for the first time since reaching $200 billion level in 2004 to build the foundation for achieving $1 trillion in trade and $30,000 in per capita income. KITA will do its utmost to see that exports would continue to grow, in view of the rising importance of trade. KITA takes pride in the fact that it is ready to become a true helping hand to the trading community, with a hope that traders would take advantage of its various services with love and great concern.
In particular, KITA upgraded its Washington office as its U.S. headquarters at the end of last year and opened a new branch office in Singapore to cope with increases in demand for market and trading information from the trade community. It is our hope that many of you would be able to expand exports and achieve many good results by taking advantage of KITA? expanded network. We hope you will also put into good use personnel trained at the Trade Academy, with courses for Trade Masters and IT Masters. All of the people who got their training at the academy found jobs 100 percent despite the difficulty of finding jobs these days and the excellence of the academy has been recognized by the trade community.
KITA will also do its utmost to propose our conditions to the DDA negotiations, which were extended until the end of this year, the chairman said. KITA will also make efforts to maximize our benefits from the FTA negotiations with MERCOSUR, India, Mexico, Canada, and ASEAN. We will do our best to open FTA negotiations with the United States, with its gigantic market, and other countries in the world. nw

Chairman Kim Jae-chul of the Korea International Trade Association.