S. Gyeongsang Province Steps up Support to Exporters

Province operates 5 overseas offices in Vietnam, China, Japan and the U.S. and maintains sisterhood ties with Yamaguchi Prefecture

South Gyeongsang Province has been making great strides in its drive to help exporters of farm produce and industrial goods produced in the province in recent years under the leadership of Gov. Kim Tae-ho of the nation’s southernmost province.
The province, from its capital in Changwon City, not only operates trade offices in five locations in four foreign countries, but also dispatches sales missions to many countries to help local exporters.
The province set up its first overseas office in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan, in July 1996, following the sisterhood tie up with the prefecture in 1987, to facilitate exchanges in various areas including trade between the two administrative organizations in Korea and Japan. The two regional administrative organizations in their two respective countries have since been involved in various events and visits, both cultural and commercial. Gov. Kim visited Yamaguchi City in November 2006 along with his entourage to attend a cultural festival and Gov. Sekinari Nii visited Changwon in 1997 to celebrate the sisterhood ties between the two provincial governments, then again in May 2007 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the ties, leading a 32-man delegation.
The provincial government also set up offices in Chengdu, Shandong Province, and Shanghai, China, to promote exports, followed by offices in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and in Los Angeles in March, 2008, the last of the five overseas offices set up by the provincial government.
These offices have been engaged in the important businesses of the province, which is to conduct trade talks with importers in the communities they are located, and provide support to exporters based in the province in various areas of trade. The offices have also been operating exhibitions of farm produce and industrial products made in the province. They collect local trade and other information of vital importance to exporters. The offices also operate cultural centers to introduce the province to potential tourists as well as those related to international exchange.
A major purpose of those overseas offices is to secure bridgeheads for exports for SMEs in the province and also to help solve various problems that they face overseas, provincial officials said.
In all, the province operates five exhibition facilities to display products made by SMEs, promote tourism and introduce provincial policies. It also operates consultation facilities at the overseas offices to help solve various problems that SMEs face in overseas operations. Those offices maintain five vehicles to provide a taxi service for the visiting personnel from overseas missions and they employ 14 local interpreters to help SME personnel on missions.
In the past three years of operating the overseas offices, the province has so far helped SME exporters from the province hold talks with 3,254 local buyers, resulting in $12.74 million worth of export negotiations, out of which $2.52 million in actual exports resulted from 803 firms.
The province used its Shimonoseki office as a base for exporting farm produce and products, and industrial goods. In order to expand exports to all areas of Japan, the province set up an office in Tokyo on Oct. 15, a center for international business including trade, as a strong base for the promotion of exports through the build-up of an economic exchange network with organizations and groups in Japan to help increase exports of SME products from the province.
The province also has taken advantage of its Shanghai office as a business center to help some 10 SMEs in the province that want to export their goods to China by providing direct support to those firms, in particular, those that are financially poor, so that they can make inroads into the neighboring country and export their goods.
The province also lets those export firms use its overseas offices and office equipment to conduct marketing activities. As a result, 10 firms ended up signing export contracts worth $18 million in 2008.
Next month, the province plans to dispatch trade missions to Shandong and Shanghai in China to export shipbuilding material and auto parts to the United States (Chicago) and Canada (Toronto). In this case, those overseas offices will see their operations expanded and become professional trade offices as they have already been engaged in finding new buyers, holding trade talks and after-services related to exports and the collection of trade information.
The Yamaguchi Prefecture is located in the southwestern part of Japan with Yamaguchi City as its capital and a population of 1.92 million residents. nw

Gov. Kim Tae-ho of South Geyongsang Province leads a group of dignitaries at the opening of the province’s office in Tokyo, Japan.