○ Latin American Trade Mission, leveraging FTA, visits three Latin American countries from April 28 to May 9
○ 10 companies held 186 meetings with local buyers (USD 35.22 million), proceeding with 160 contracts (USD 15.53 million)

The Gyeonggi Province Latin American Trade Mission visited Mexico, Peru, and Colombia from April 28 to May 9, and held 186 business meetings that are expected to result in export contracts worth a total of USD 15.53 million.

The mission members consisted of 10 small and medium-sized enterprises based in the province, including: C&N Cosmetics, PaxGenBio, Sehwa CNM, Daeun Medical, Airtec, C&C International, Rits-N, MK Bio Science, Weltech and DH Tech. Gyeonggi Province, the Gyeonggi FTA Business Center, and KOTRA provided these businesses with local buyer matching, consultation, and interpretation services.

The mission members visited Mexico City (Mexico), Lima (Peru), and Bogota (Colombia), holding export conferences. In Mexico, participating companies held 54 meetings pertaining to exports valued at USD 11.71 million and entered into 50 contracts valued at USD 6.43 million. In Peru, 71 meetings took place for export consultations valued at USD 12.26 million and 55 contracts worth USD 4.48 million. In Colombia, the companies held 61 meetings for export consultations valued at USD 11.24 million and a total of 55 contracts worth USD 4.61 million.

Weltech, a manufacturer of water purifiers and hydrogenous water machines, received initial orders worth USD 8,810 from three Mexican companies and orders valued at USD 360 thousand from three Colombian companies, entering into business agreements with them immediately. “We participated in the Central and South America Trade Promotion Conference for the third time, and finally came to understand what types of products actually work for export to the Latin American market. For the purpose of maintaining continuous communications with local markets, events like this conference are necessary because they are the best way to precisely understand international markets and succeed in exporting,” said Lee Nam-seok, the Vice President of Weltech.

DH Tech, a welding machine manufacturer, participated in the Gyeonggi Provincial Trade Mission for the first time. DH Tech promoted the high quality and reasonable prices of its products among Mexican buyers, who had previously only dealt with expensive US or European products or cheap Chinese products; DH Tech received orders worth USD 65,000 on the spot.

Airtec, a small air purifier manufacturer from Seongnam, participated in this conference for the purpose of conducting research on the Latin American market, where particulate matter has not yet emerged as a widespread social issue. However, the company unexpectedly had great success at the conference: local buyers showed a lot of interest in Airtec’s Bluetooth speakers and air purifiers that were designed in collaboration with Walt Disney Studios and Marvel Studios. Airtec received an initial order for 250 air purifiers valued at USD 30,000 from Airum, based in Mexico, and signed a business agreement with Optimus Team SAS, from Columbia, for a deal worth USD 200 thousand.

“Mexico is our largest export market in Central and South America and the investment environment in the region has improved, attracting foreign investment to Peru,” said Park Shin-whoan, Gyeonggi Province Assistant Governor for Economy and Labor. “Since Colombia is a FTA partner with Korea, Korean companies can be more competitive in price in the country than rivals from other countries. Gyeonggi Province will continue to support Korean companies so that they can expand their exports throughout Latin America, starting with these export conferences,” he added.