Daegu Metropolitan City - A project, in which the Daegu metropolitan government provides exhibition costs of up to 30 million won to leading exporters participating in overseas fairs through large booths (27 sq. meters or more), is generating a larger-than-expected impact.
Participation in overseas exhibitions generates a significant marketing effect, including the promotion of products, development of new markets, and the gathering of information on the latest trends. But due to the high cost, including booth rental fees, equipment expenses and transportation costs, individual companies have had difficulties in enhancing their brand image by increasing the size of their exhibition booths and upgrading their exhibition quality.
For this reason, Daegu provided 5 million won per event, and up to 10 million won per company per year, for a standard sized booth (9 sq. meters) in order to assist companies participating in foreign exhibitions. But under a “special assistance program to accelerate the growth of companies in the development phase in Daegu,” the city government implemented, in the second half of last year, for the first time in Korea, a project to provide up to 30 million won in assistance to companies operating large-sized exhibition booths measuring 27 sq. meters (at least three times the size of the standard booth) or more at overseas fairs.
As a result, the program has increased the size of exhibition booths and upgraded the quality of the exhibits displayed at overseas exhibitions by small- and medium-sized companies from the Daegu region, thus contributing to galvanizing the regional economy through the expansion of exports and the internationalization of local companies.
The city government provided assistance to eight companies (a total of 87 million won) in 2011 and enabled them to ink trade deals worth US$818,000 on the spot, while the eight companies posted year-on year export expansion of 19.2 percent (from $26 million in 2010 to $31 million in 2011).
Notably, six companies among the firms the city government selected this year have taken part in leading overseas exhibitions, including R⁺T Exhibition (Sunshade) in Germany, and the China International Furniture Fair, and sealed export deals worth $7.049 million on the spot. As such, Daegu’s program to provide special assistance to leading exporters that are individually participating in overseas exhibitions is generating a significant impact.
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