The new head of South Korea's trade promotion agency said Wednesday he will strengthen "open collaboration" with other state agencies and organizations to create synergy in helping local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) grow into global companies.

Kim Jae-hong, who took office as the head of the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) earlier this month, added that the agency will serve as a "guide" for firms to better capitalize on free trade deals that the government has secured with other countries.

"In helping small firms grow into global companies, KOTRA faces a limit in its capacity. We will strengthen cooperation not just with agencies for finance, M&As and training but also with other competing agencies to create synergy through the so-called open collaboration in which results will also be shared," Kim told reporters during a press conference.

To that end, Kim, a former vice commerce minister, said that he met with the vice chairman of the Korea International Trade Association and also plans to meet officials of other agencies, including the Korea Trade Insurance Corp., the Export-Import Bank of Korea, and the Small and Medium Business Corp.

Noting that South Korea has always found a breakthrough in overseas markets whenever it has faced a crisis, he said his agency will help nurture more exporters. Toward that purpose, it will designate 1,400 domestic sales-oriented small companies to support their transition to export-oriented ones, he said.

Kim said that KOTRA will also work hard to help local companies better utilize free trade agreements (FTAs) as he sees the agreements as a way to expand the country's "economic cooperation territory."

"We will play a guiding role for our companies to well capitalize on the economic cooperation territory expanded by the FTAs," he said.

He said that it would be difficult to achieve the US$2 trillion trade target under the current manufacturing-focused economic structure, adding that his agency will focus on expanding export markets into other areas, such as energy, cultural content, medical services and military equipment. (Yonhap)