KOTRA's new-exporter tally clusters at the $600 bar tied to staff pay

The firms that hit exactly $600 are about 28.5% of the 3,212 in the $600-$699 band ^[12] and 8.3% of all 10,976 conversions ^[13]. That share held steady as the numbers grew: 27.8% in 2023, 30.1% in 2024 and 27.7% in 2025 ^[14], with the exact-$600 count up about 78% over the two years ^[18]. In our view the floor is setting the size of the orders. First shipments priced by what foreign buyers wanted would not land on the agency's minimum this often.

In dollars the band is small. Its 3,212 firms shipped between $1.93 million and $2.25 million combined over three years ^[15], and they make up 29.3% of the program's count ^[2].

The rule's other condition shapes where office time goes. A credit needs a blank prior year ^[4], so the 235 firms from the 2023-24 band that kept exporting earned their offices no new credit for the second year ^[19]. Each year's count, and the performance pay attached to it ^[4], depends on finding fresh zero-export firms ^[19].

The same data has an honest reading. Small first shipments are how a firm tests a market, and 225 sample shipments and similar trial deals were counted as conversions ^[8]. If most such tests fail, an 87.1% lapse rate ^[7] could simply be what testing looks like. Our view is wrong if firms credited well above $700 lapse at about the same rate. Then the $600 cluster would be a symptom of a program that converts few firms at any size. The next-year figures Rep. Yoon Han-hong of the People Power Party obtained from KOTRA cover only the $600 band ^[1][7].

KOTRA's $1,000 minimum ^[9] can go two ways. Offices find another $400 per shipment ^[16] and the cluster moves up the scale, or the agency starts scoring whether a credited firm exports again. We'd expect the first, because the dollar figure is the only term KOTRA has said it is changing ^[9] and the count still credits one firm for one year ^[4]. Yoon expects the same. "If the evaluation method stays the same, results that were tailored to $600 will simply end up tailored to $1,000," he said ^[10].