April 27, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] South Korea is a strategically important market for consumer companies in the United Kingdom as the country drives the trends in Northeast Asia, says the CEO of the British Chamber of Commerce in Korea.

“The Korean market is maybe what the Japanese market was five or 10 years ago in terms of driving trends in Southeast Asia. So if a UK company lands its brand successfully in Korea, it will help its business in Japan, China and other Asian countries,” said BCCK head Sean Blakeley in an interview with The Investor on May 25.

Sean Blakeley, the CEO of the British Chamber of Commerce in Korea BCCK

The British industry sectors that are showing interest in Korea are currently mostly consumer-related, such as food and beverage, beauty and jewelry, he added.

Blakeley, who has been in Korea for 13 years, said “A lot of UK companies, including tech companies, are wanting to work with Korean multinationals for third country projects.”

For example, a UK solar or wind company may not necessarily want to build a wind farm off the coast of Korea but they may want to work with Daelim Industrial to set up the farm off the coast of Argentina. “That means Korea has become strategically more important than it used to be,” he noted.

South Korea is the UK’s 11th-largest trading partner and issued a public statement saying it would like to have an “uninterrupted” bilateral trade agreement with the UK after its decision to leave the European Union. To help promote such initiatives, the chamber is helping UK and Korean companies pursue the co-development of fields related to the “fourth industrial revolution” such as artificial intelligence and 5G telecommunications.

Seoul and London have set up the Joint Economic and Trade Committee, which serves as a forum for Korea’s top businesspeople, politicians and their British counterparts to discuss ways to develop bilateral programs and partnerships. The latest discussions were held three months ago in Korea. They were run by John Alty, director general of trade policy at the Department for International Trade from Britain.

“That’s a good example of what our role is. Most of the major UK companies that are based in Korea are our members. So when those discussions are happening here it is important for the British government to understand what the priorities of the British business communities here are,” Blakeley said.

The BCCK is an organization that represents the business interests of its some 300 members in Korea including AstraZeneca, Bentley and British Airways. Its recommendations are reflected in the British government’s trade policies.

To reach out to its members and connect with Korea digitally, the chamber recently launched its first webzine, Focus at http://bcck.or.kr/news-events/chamber-webzine/. The next issue will be published at the end of July.

By Park Han-na (hnpark@heraldcorp.com)