'Export Guide' KOTRA Accelerates Training of Digital Trade Personnel

'Success Casebook' Featuring Stories of Youth and SMEs
Lee Jung-hoon, Division Head: "A Competent Guide for Export Success"

The Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) has launched an initiative to train digital trade personnel.

On the 4th, KOTRA announced that it held the first-term results report and the second-term launch ceremony for the 2025 Digital Trade Personnel (deXters, hereafter referred to as Dexters) training project at its headquarters in Seocho-gu, Seoul on the 3rd. It also published a 'Success Casebook' featuring small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and youth who achieved export and employment/start-up through digital trade platforms.

Participants are taking a commemorative photo at the 1st result briefing session of the 2025 Digital Trade Workforce Training Project held by KOTRA on the 3rd at the KOTRA headquarters in Seocho-gu, Seoul. Photo by KOTRA

The Dexters training project is operated by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and KOTRA to fulfill the national agenda of becoming one of the top five export powers. Through KOTRA’s digital trade platforms ▲BuyKorea ▲Overseas Economic Information Dream ▲TriVic ▲Trade-Investment 24, youth and SMEs can learn digital export marketing courses. The practical training course, which includes actual buyer discovery and export practice, lasts 8 weeks. In the first term, 321 people were trained, bringing the total number of graduates to 2,839. The goal is to train 5,000 people by 2027.

The 'KOTRA Digital Trade Success Casebook,' published alongside this event, contains 13 cases of successful digital export marketing by domestic companies and digital marketer employment/start-up cases of Dexters graduates. It vividly conveys success stories through interviews with youth, companies, overseas buyers, and KOTRA’s overseas trade offices.

Lee Jung-hoon, head of KOTRA’s Digital Trade and Investment Division, said, "In line with the era of digital innovation, we are continuously developing KOTRA’s digital trade platforms by integrating artificial intelligence (AI), big data, and more." He added, "KOTRA will play a competent guide role to help youth and SMEs actively utilize digital trade."