The Korea International Trade Association (KITA; Korean: 한국무역협회; Hanja: 韓國貿易協會) is a private non-profittrade organization founded in 1946 with 105 traders as its founding members. It is one of Korea's largest umbrella economic organizations and has more than 70,000 member firms, representing almost the entirety of Korea's international trade community.
KITA’s activities include support for overseas marketing and investment, promotion of international cooperation, provision of trade information and research, training of international trade specialists, and trade related consulting (including arbitration of trade disputes and policy recommendations for the government).
KITA runs the World Trade Center Seoul (WTCS), commonly known as COEX, which includes two large office complexes, the Trade Tower and ASEM Tower. The WTCS has a number of subsidiaries and affiliates, including the COEX Convention & Exhibition Center and COEX Mall. KITA owns KTNET (Korea Trade Network) which is the National Paperless Trade Platform or Single Window (uTradeHub) operator and e-commerce infrastructure (such as Certificate of Authority issuing Digital Certificate)-related service provider.
In May 2012, KITA announced major renovation plans for the COEX Mall. It will spend ₩180 billion to the upgrade project. The renovation was needed to create passenger walkways between the new COEX Station on Seoul Subway Line 9, due for completion in 2014, with Samseong StationonLine 2. It was scheduled to start at the end of 2012 and be completed by November 2014. The floor space was expected to increased to 173,025 square meters from the current 152,116 square meters.[1]
