KOTRA Widens Export Push From Mongolia to Hyundai-Kia Supply Chains

South Korea’s state trade promoter is pursuing export growth on two fronts at once: opening new ground in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and shoring up the overseas prospects of the domestic auto-parts industry. The Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) held a CIS trade and investment expansion strategy meeting in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, on July 8, and separately joined with Hyundai Motor and Kia to help parts makers step into foreign markets.

Anchoring a CIS Strategy in Ulaanbaatar

By convening its regional strategy session in Mongolia, KOTRA is positioning Ulaanbaatar as a working base for reaching the broader CIS bloc rather than treating any single market in isolation. As one of the country’s independent government agencies charged with trade and investment promotion, KOTRA runs an overseas network of trade offices that gives such coordination meetings their practical weight, aligning local field intelligence with Seoul’s export targets for a region where Korean firms have historically had thinner footholds than in North America or Western Europe.

The choice of venue matters. A meeting held inside the region, rather than back in Seoul, lets KOTRA’s field staff and visiting officials map on-the-ground demand, financing conditions and logistics bottlenecks specific to CIS buyers—the groundwork that determines whether follow-on trade missions and buyer matchmaking actually convert into orders.

Bringing the Auto-Parts Tier Along

The second initiative pairs KOTRA’s market-access machinery with the purchasing reach of the country’s dominant carmakers. Hyundai Motor and Kia are not only assembly giants but also the anchor customers for a deep bench of Korean component suppliers, and the tie-up is aimed at carrying those smaller firms into export markets on the back of the two automakers’ global distribution.

The scale of that distribution is the point of leverage. Hyundai sells vehicles across 193 countries through roughly 5,000 dealerships and showrooms, and reported 2025 revenue of 186.3 trillion won with net income of 10.36 trillion won—a footprint that a first-time exporting parts maker cannot replicate alone. Kia adds its own volume, having sold more than 2.8 million vehicles in 2019 to rank second among Korean automakers. Threading suppliers into that existing sales-and-service web shortens the path to overseas buyers.

Two Companies Bound by Ownership

The Hyundai-Kia partnership is underpinned by a corporate link that runs deeper than a marketing alliance. Hyundai Motor holds a 33.88% ownership stake in Kia, a cross-holding that is periodically restated in regulatory filings to South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service; the latest disclosures on Kia’s largest-shareholder position and Hyundai’s substantial holding confirm the two remain closely tethered. That shared ownership makes a coordinated supplier-support program a natural extension of how the group already operates, rather than a one-off arrangement between rivals.

Founded in 1967, Hyundai now employs around 75,000 people worldwide, while Kia traces its roots to 1944. Their combined procurement decisions ripple through hundreds of Korean parts firms, which is precisely why routing export support through the two automakers can reach a wide slice of the supplier base at once.

The Test Ahead

Both moves share a common logic: use KOTRA’s public market-access tools to amplify private-sector reach, whether that reach comes from a regional office network in the CIS or from Hyundai and Kia’s global dealer footprint. The measure of success will not be the meetings themselves but whether CIS engagement produces durable buyer relationships and whether parts suppliers convert automaker backing into standalone export contracts. Concrete figures on new orders, participating suppliers and CIS deal value will show whether the two initiatives deliver beyond their announcements.