Anchor: South Korean exports of beauty products quadrupled last year compared to four years ago. As Kurt Achin reports, cosmetics are unmistakably becoming a pillar of the Korean export economy.

Report: South Korea exported just short of five billion dollars worth of cosmetics last year.
That’s according to the newly released "2018 Global Cosmetics Industry White Paper" from the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency, or KOTRA.

So-called “K-Beauty” exports had already reached last year’s four-point-six billion dollars by September, an increase of 31-point-four percent from the same nine-month period last year.

The trend is fueled by the popularity of cultural exports like Korean dramas and the success of pop music supergroups like boy band BTS.

The greater China region, including Taiwan and Hong Kong, bought the overwhelming majority of Korean cosmetics exports worth three-point-26 billion dollars.

Southeast Asia purchased 530-million dollars of Korean cosmetics. North America bought 470 million and Europe bought 160 million dollars worth.

A reputation for quality helped Korean brands, along with innovations such as the use of exotic ingredients.

There’s also simply more companies out there putting out product—nearly 12-thousand K-beauty companies operating in 2017 compared to fewer than three thousand four years ago.

The numbers in the KOTRA report show cosmetics, as a sector, are slowly becoming just as important to the economy as other well-known South Korean products.

Last year’s K-beauty exports are the equivalent of almost 20 percent of South Korea’s auto components, 51-percent of household appliances and 65 percent of South Korean mobile phone exports.
Kurt Achin, KBS World Radio News.