By Kim Sung-jin Staff Reporter, The Korea Times South Korea launched an upgraded electronic trade (e-trade) portal, www.buykorea.org, for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and foreign companies interested in forming new business deals with Korean corporations. KOTRA, the nation's trade and investment promotion agency, held an opening ceremony for Buykorea.org at its headquarters in southern Seoul. The e-trade portal is a part of the "e-Trade Korea" project, a national drive to foster Korea into a global e-trade hub. "Buykorea.org will serve as a cornerstone for Korea's development into the world's eighth largest trading power by 2008, achieving $400 billion in exports," said Kim In-shik, KOTRA executive vice president for overseas marketing. Buykorea.org is an integrated e-trade Web site with improved features for more convenient use. KOTRA consolidated two previous e-trade related sites --Silkroad21.com and Kobo.net -- into the new portal, eliminating the annoyance for foreign companies wanting to locate ideal trade and business partners. E-trade refers to a new type of commercial inter-country business transaction that is not restricted by time, space or physical distance. All necessary trade-related procedures ranging from searching for buyers or suppliers to trade consultations, contracting, raw materials supply, transportation, customs clearance and payments, are done online via the Internet. Convenient features of the portal include a powerful search engine, electronic catalog containing production information and three-dimensional product images, and foreign market and trade-related information provided by KOTRA's 105 overseas offices. KOTRA also added a cyber marketing menu to Buykorea.org where companies can single-handedly upload corporate and product information to promote their services and products, whereas existing e-trade or e-business Web sites only allow people to view trade-related information. Notably, the new e-trade portal not only enables foreign companies to search for Korean buyers and suppliers as well as product information and vice versa, but hold real time video trade consultations via the Internet.