A pioneering office for the Korean marine and shipbuilding industry

It leverages on Singapore's status as a marine hub.

As a global hub office for the Korean marine and shipbuilding industry, Korea Marine Equipment Association (KOMEA) was established as the first overseas representative office for the industry.

According to Park Yoonso, Chairman of KOMEA, it was designed to meet the needs of globalization for the industry with the key feature of a co-operative office space, which will fulfil the role of the Singapore office in connecting markets and developing new business opportunities.

"This is a pioneering project for the marine and shipbuilding industry," says Park. "Both Korea and Singapore are key players in the industry, and this project aims to complement their strengths and weaknesses."

Korea is good in manufacturing while Singapore is more developed for marketing and globalization, according to Park. "With a co-operative concept, we endeavour to make collaboration with the Singapore industry a successful effort," he says.

KOMEA is located at 81 Ubi Avenue 4. This location was a strategic choice, he notes, for its good accessibility, developed infrastructure for sales and marketing, as well as the reasonable cost for management.

From the initial stage of a co-operative office for five companies, Park says they will expand this office to cover up to fifty businesses from Korea by 2018. The co-operative space concept is also aligned throughout the office, with co-operative promotion space and meeting rooms. Further, to overcome potential difficulties for long-term expansion, he says they will have to diversify and build close relationships with business partners from different countries.

The excellent business environment of Singapore as a marine hub and the support from our local partners paved a smooth-sailing process for the opening of the Singapore office, he says. Being a new office, they will continue to work towards its expansion and maximise the use of the space in creating a conducive co-operative environment for KOMEA's business partners.

As the chief representative for KOMEA, Park notes that he expects there will be numerous obstacles in penetrating the overall ASEAN market since the market situation and environment will be largely diverse.

"While this is a challenging and competitive market, I strongly believe that a close collaboration between Korea and Singapore will be beneficial to both parties," he shares. "As such, we will endeavour to build more partnerships and invite more Korean marine companies to initiate their business in Singapore. Over time, we hope to build a community of strong marine players in our co-operative space."