Approximately 2,200 Korean exporters had a speed meeting with foreign buyers in Ilsan at KINTEX on March 3. "This is a very rare opportunity where we can meet and introduce our products to foreign buyers without flying out of the country to do so," said a sales manager of Unichem. Here, Korean sellers were given maximum of one hour to introduce their product lines to buyers. According to KOTRA, about 4,400 business meetings were held in Buy Korea 2010.
The Ministry of Knowledge Economy and KOTRA created this event for the third time since last year and invited only selected buyers to come for a professional business meeting. Many buyers agreed that an event like this is not only to buy and sell, but also to expand relationships for a potential partnership in the future. New faces were shown on the event floor as well and some of them encountered Korean products for the first time.
"Korean products have now become favorable to foreign buyers who are involved with major projects in their country due to our products' high quality and reasonable price. Most buyers were open to meet Korean products, and noted their great impression on the quality of Korean products in general," said a KOTRA official.
Master International
Master International returned this year with two booths full of meeting arrangements. Since Master International represents the successful family business, CEO Ike Nizam was present with one of his five sons this year to make business with Korea. The company owns 12 companies in the U.S. and has the title of 14 largest distribution center in the U.S. Riad Nizam, General Manager of Master International said, "We have every intention to strengthen our relationship with Korean companies because the Korean culture is more advanced and westernized. It seems that people I held meetings with today connected with us way easier than any other countries. We recently built an office in Malaysia, but it is our big plan in the future to launch more offices in Asia to globalize our company. We hope to find reliable distributors, so that we could create a website to sell." One of its companies, onlinecompoments.com, is the most successful case of e-commerce in the world with 50,050,000 available components to be shipped to any place around the world.
Tresu Group, Denmark
Tresu is a Danish company that produces printing machines. Flemming Basse Mantroen, the Strategic Purchase Manager of Tresu said, "We made our first visit to Buy Korea 2010 in search of rubber sealing for our Chamber Doctor Blade System." We need about 500,000 meters of wiper blades and 500,000 use rubber sealings every year to produce our printing machines. With forty engineers, our strength is that we actually customize printing machines to sell them worldwide. We have a base in USA and Denmark, but we also have representative company branches worldwide including Japan, England, and Italy." Since Tresu is in need of a huge amount of rubber sealings and wiper blades. For Tresu, quality is the key and that is where the strength of Korea lies in. "We are well aware of high quality of Korean products and not only we are thrilled to meet a good seller, but also to find out what is going on in Korea," said Mantroen.
Plica, Switzerland
A Swiss company, Plica, also made a first visit to Buy Korea 2010. "We import electronic components and our main customer is whole sellers, but we do have OEM customers as well," stated by Fabio Attili, the purchase manager of Plica. Plica dominates 95 percent of domestic market in Switzerland, and is looking to expand into Asia. "We've been importing 20,000 different product parts annually in average, but we are seeking to both import and export from the new year," said Attili.
GN ReSound, Denmark
GN ReSound is a Danish company that specializes in manufacturing hearing aids. Morten Nielsen, Category Manager of GN said, "We are in search of the top quality plastic parts, rubber parts, and metal parts. Our main production is in China and we are currently working mostly with Chinese suppliers, but by visiting Buy Korea 2010, we are also seeking for the possibility to find Korean suppliers."
Total market value of GN is DKK15-20 billion and the company sticks with the principle of providing the best quality to its customers. "If the quality is not right, we will be delayed in process anyway. So quality is the key, and we hope to find many hearing aids components that are high in quality and reasonable in price," said Nielsen.
VANI, Vietnam
VANI came to Korea with great expectations to find an excellent auto door seller. Director Nguyen Van Binh of VANI said, "We are intending to buy finger locks, digital locks, and auto door locksets. As a distributor of auto doors in Vietnam, we have purchased auto door related components from Korea last year and the result was quite successful. We are expecting to buy more this year by increasing our purchasing budget to US$ 20,000."
Astina, Switzerland
About 600 foreign buyers are present at Buy Korea 2010, with a clear purpose to interact with Korean sellers, but a specialized software company from Switzerland was spotted on the floor with a mission, brandizing. While Korea is highly promoting ubiquitous society as the future brand of the country, some countries around the world are strengthening on the green movement.
Since 2004, Astina has specialized in information retrieval, data processing, and information filtering. "We are optimizing by bringing together everything we have seen in the software industry. But what we also recognize is that we need good people to shape an environment that is perfect. In order to support our clients, we are launching a new business by commencing on an e-bike project. For this particular visit to Buy Korea 2010, we sought to find sellers that are specialized in e-bike components. This company called Powerride stood out of seven companies we interviewed in the morning because of their specialization in customer oriented solutions," said Marc Gasser, the product manager. Astina seeks to build stylish e-bikes that are affordable. Since Korea is known for high quality products for reasonable price, Korea is the right place to do this business with and Switzerland is a good test market for Europe.
Besto, Japan
Besto, a Japanese company with 106 years of history in the lamp business, has attended the event for the first time. Yukio Yasuda, the president of Besto said, "Korea is the global leader of displays for instance Samsung, LG, and there are many other suppliers with great technology. Although Japan has big corporations like Panasonic and Sony, they do not invest a lot of money in new technology. I came here to find cutting-edge products in displays to compete with other small and mid-size companies in Japan. "Buy Korea 2010" gave me a great opportunity to meet with Korean sellers. I appreciate KOTRA for arranging terrific meetings for us, but we sometimes felt one hour meetings was just not effective to have quality discussion with potential sellers. I would have enjoyed it a little more if the time frame was more flexible," stated Yukio Yasuda.
Automax, Hungary
Automax is a Hungarian IT distribution company, located in Budapest. Laszlo Holler, the product manager of Automax, attended the event for the first time. Holler said, "Samsung and LG have very strong sales in Hungary. We came to find potential monitor suppliers, but we found other interesting products as well. I have been to big trading shows like this in Taiwan and I believe "Buy Korea" is well organized compared to other buyers meetings around the world, but I wish I could meet more various companies at this event."
VISION Creare Co., Ltd, Japan
VISION Creare Co., Ltd attended Buy Korea 2010 to find cutting-edge IT products that would be radically new for the Japanese market. He said, "I was very intrigued to meet Korean sellers today. One was PMP Karaoke of HANA Electronics. I think PMP Karaoke has many contents and various applications, which will capture the eyes of Japanese consumers. The other one is USB driver, YOUNUS that also functions as a server. They were both very impressive. I have never seen any USB product like this!"
Guang ZHANG Shijie Videosoft Co., Ltd, China
Zhang Bing, President of Guang ZHANG Shijie Videosoft is an internet telecommunication product developing company that majors in Wireless media. Zhang Bing came to Buy Korea 2010 to find the top quality Korean wireless products. "Chinese market demand has increased as well as its volume. This is time to expand our product line, and we believe that Korea is the right place to build a good relationship with."
About US$500 million worth of contracts are expected to be made from Buy Korea 2010.
