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The annual dinner of the Southeast United States Korean Chamber of Commerce held the evening of Jan. 26 at West Georgia Technical College in LaGrange brought together more than 150 attendees who celebrated economic ties with South Korea and the region’s workforce development initiatives.
Founded in 1991 as the Korea Southeast U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the institution underwent a name and branding change the past year with a new logo.
Speakers at the dinner included Jane Fryer, the chamber president and executive director of the Meriwether County Development Authority; Stephen Daniel, president of the West Georgia Technical College; Seong-Jin Kim, South Korea’s Atlanta-based consul general and Michael Randle, owner and publisher of Southern Business Development Magazine.
Mr. Kim welcomed the attendees to the “Year of the Rooster” event and traced Korean investment in Georgia from the opening of SKC Inc. in 1998 to the investment in West Point of Kia Motors America Inc. and its suppliers in 2009.
He also referred to the openings of Kumho Tire USA Inc. in Macon last year and the U.S. headquarters this past December in Atlanta of POSCO (formerly Pohang Iron and Steel Company), a multinational steel-making company headquartered in Pohang, South Korea.
He was upbeat about Korea-Georgia trade, saying that in 2015 it totaled $8.1 billion, 7 percent of the total Korea-U.S. trade volume of $115 billion. “We still have much room to grow in trade of goods,” he added.
He was equally upbeat about Korean investment into the Southeast under the Trump administration and said that he hoped that “the Southeastern states will continue to be the best destinations for new Korean investors.”
Georgia’s first Korean investment began in 1996 when construction began SKC’s manufacturing facility in Covington to supply the North and Latin American markets with polyester films.
A merger between SKC Co., Ltd., and SK Evertec began in 2001 to expand the reach of both companies in the IT, electronic materials and fine chemicals markets. In addition to its plants in Suwon, South Korea, and Covington, it has a plant in Chonan, South Korea, to manufacture products for electronic media.
Mr. Kim also reviewed what he termed as the “positive impacts” of the free trade agreement with South Korea (KORUS FTA) since March 2012.
“The FTA has steadily increased Korea’s investment to the U.S.,” he said. “In the six Southeastern states alone, 195 Korea companies have invested over $12 billion and created more than 35,000 jobs.”
Workforce development was a major theme of the dinner with Mr. Daniel promoting the courses that West Georgia Technical College offers. Jamie Jackson, the son of the late Kia executive Randy Jackson, who led the company through its startup phase and later expansion, spoke of Kia’s support for the Thinc College and Career Academy, a charter school launched in 2015 to prepare students for the modern workforce. The chamber donated $500 to the academy in Mr. Jackson’s memory.
Mr. Randle provided a detailed overview of the expansion of manufacturing and service economic sectors pointing to the need for expanding the local workforce to fill the need for qualified personnel as companies expand in the region.
Among the dinner’s platinum sponsors of the dinner were Korean Air, Kia Motors, West Georgia Technical College, UPS, and Mando America Corp. Silver sponsors included BBVA Compass Bank, Donjon Autocrat Technology, Georgia Dental Implant Center, LaGrange Troup County Chamber of Commerce, Meriwether county Industrial Development Authority, Nelson, Mullins, Riley & Scarborough, and the Industrial Development Doard of the City of Auburn.
Bronze sponsors included the Bank of Hope, Hunton & Williams LLP, Jones, Lang, LaSalle, JM Williams Contractors, URIS Global LLC, Williams & Associates and the Law Office of Kennon Peebles.
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