The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy launched a delegation to address export challenges and discussed support measures to address the automotive industry's concerns, including securing auto carriers and preferential trade insurance coverage for parts companies.

As the first step toward achieving an early export-plus turnaround in the second half of the year, Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Bang Moon-kyu visited Hyundai Motor Company's Asan plant on the 26th and held the inaugural launch ceremony of the 'Export Site Visiting Group.'

The Export Field Visiting Group (hereinafter referred to as the Visiting Group) is a program in which the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, which oversees export policy, communicates with large, small, and medium-sized enterprises and industry-specific associations and organizations to identify export difficulties and resolve export difficulties on-site as a single team with support organizations in each field, such as finance, marketing, and certification.

The delegation plans to visit key industries such as secondary batteries and OLEDs, as well as promising small and medium-sized enterprises across the country, starting with the automobile sector, to address and manage export challenges.

At the launching ceremony held that day, various support measures were discussed, including: △developing the ASEAN market by utilizing ODA projects such as electric vehicle pilot distribution and charger construction; △securing additional car carriers to resolve the port saturation problem; and △providing preferential trade insurance limits for auto parts companies.

Minister Bang said, “Automobile exports have served as a strong support for our exports, recording double-digit growth rates for 14 consecutive months even during difficult times,” adding, “In particular, electric vehicle exports recorded $9.4 billion as of August, a 94% increase year-on-year, and are emerging as a new export engine.” He added, “We hope that this trend will continue and that we will become a leader in the export-plus transformation in the second half of the year.”

He also emphasized, “The eco-friendly market will continue to grow thanks to the global carbon-neutral trend, such as the US IRA and the EU’s phase-out of internal combustion engine vehicles,” and “Among them, the electric vehicle industry is a key industry that creates demand for various cutting-edge industries, such as secondary batteries and semiconductors.”

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy plans to spare no support to foster electric vehicles as a key export engine in the future.

First, we will expand eco-friendly vehicle export bases to Northern Europe, Japan, and other countries to support the integration of small and medium-sized electric vehicle parts companies into the global supply chain.

In addition, to support the domestic automobile industry's timely transition to future vehicles, we plan to invest 2 trillion won in R&D in the automobile sector over the next five years to secure core technologies to strengthen the future vehicle sector, while proactively providing 9.1 trillion won in future vehicle transition financing and smoothly promoting the enactment of a special law on future vehicle parts.