KOTRA earns top public institution rating for 4th consecutive year

KOTRA announced Monday it received an A rating — the highest grade — in the Ministry of Economy and Finance's 2025 Public Institution Management Performance Evaluation.

KOTRA is the only public institution to have earned the top rating for four consecutive years. It also received the top "excellent" grade in the separate evaluation of its president's management contract performance, making it one of the few institutions to achieve the highest marks in both categories.

The evaluation covered 88 public enterprises and quasi-government institutions, of which 15 received an A rating. Among the 82 institution heads assessed, only six earned the top grade. KOTRA was one of three institutions to receive the highest rating in both the institutional and presidential evaluations.

Founded in 1962, KOTRA is a quasi-government agency that supports trade and investment attraction. In recent years, it has expanded its economic security functions, building an AI-based trade and investment support system, responding to supply chain restructuring and recruiting overseas talent for advanced industries.

KOTRA said that despite shifts in the global trade environment — including US tariff measures — it worked with the government and businesses last year to help achieve $700 billion in exports and diversify export markets.

Particularly notable was its operation of "Tariff Response 119," a pan-government integrated hotline for responding to US tariffs, through which it assisted companies with more than 10,000 trade difficulties. KOTRA also leveraged events such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Gyeongju to help attract a record level of foreign direct investment in the fourth quarter of last year.

The agency's contributions to balanced regional development were also recognized. KOTRA introduced the "Export Hope 1000" project and expanded collaboration with local governments to support exports and foreign investment attraction in key regional industries.

Progress on AI adoption was another major factor in the evaluation. KOTRA was named one of the Ministry of Economy and Finance's "Top 10 AI-Leading Institutions" and upgraded its safety management systems by using AI photo-analysis solutions for facility safety inspections and crowd management at events.

To lower barriers to export entry, KOTRA ran a pilot service for its "AI Export Secretary" and supported companies' AI adoption through 20 AI trade support centers nationwide. Its seven consecutive years of top scores in customer satisfaction evaluations and five consecutive years of top marks in shared-growth assessments were also reflected in this year's results.

KOTRA President Kang Gyeong-seong said the achievement "is the result of the wholehearted efforts of all our staff in keeping pace with the government's national agenda and the upheaval in the global trade order." He added, "I am particularly grateful that we overcame an unprecedented trade storm alongside our exporting companies to achieve $700 billion in exports and market diversification."

"Going forward, we will continue to generate results through relentless management innovation and become an institution trusted by the public," Kang said. "We will work even harder to expand exports for everyone — with AI adoption and regional growth as our twin pillars — and usher in an era of top-five export status and $1 trillion in exports."