MSS Hosts K-Business Day 2024: Boosting Korean SMEs’ Entry into the Middle East

MSS Hosts K-Business Day 2024: Boosting Korean SMEs’ Entry into the Middle East

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The Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS) of Korea, in collaboration with the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business, is set to host the “K-Business Day in the Middle East 2024″ export consultation event on February 27th (in Riyadh) and 29th (in Dubai), according to local time. This initiative aims to support promising small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in their efforts to enter the Middle Eastern market.

This event marks the first follow-up action under the “Framework Cooperation Program” initiated by the MSS of Korea and the Saudi Investment Ministry to bolster the entry and business support of Korean SMEs in Saudi Arabia since December last year. It also serves as the second follow-up action to the economic cooperation MOU signed between the MSS of Korea and the UAE Ministry of Economy during President Yoon Suk-yeol’s state visit to the UAE in January of the previous year.

The export consultation meeting will feature 20 promising SMEs from sectors such as beauty, food, and consumer goods, which have seen high demand due to the Korean Wave. These companies will engage in one-on-one consultations with approximately 140 buyers from the surrounding Middle Eastern region (79 companies in Riyadh and 61 companies in Dubai).

In pre-consultations, the Korean cosmetics company CellbyCell is currently negotiating a long-term sales contract with a distributor in Kuwait, and Eonpolis, a Korean manufacturer of bathroom supplies, is preparing to sign an MOU with a UAE distributor, thereby laying the foundation for their entry into the Middle East.

Furthermore, this event will also pilot a digital transformation policy for the export consultation meeting, building on collaborations with major corporations. By leveraging the real-time translation feature of the Samsung Galaxy S24, provided free of charge through collaboration, the feasibility of its application in related policies will be assessed. Additionally, the event will explore the possibility of using documents (such as business cards and consultation logs) generated during the consultation process as electronic documents in the future, utilizing Naver’s Clova OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology. The real-time translation feature of the Samsung Galaxy S24, which operates without an internet connection based on pre-installed artificial intelligence, currently supports 13 language packs.

Lee Dae-hee, the Director-General of Small and Medium Enterprise Policy at the MSS of Korea, who personally visited the pre-consultation venue to support the participating companies, emphasized that it was an excellent opportunity to reaffirm the potential for success in the Middle Eastern market. He stated, “We will utilize the support capabilities of both the public and private sectors to further expand our entry into the Middle East in more diverse ways.”

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