Current Status of the Operation of Overseas Offices of Public Institutions and Future Tasks for Improvement

 

Published on May 12, 2026
Published by Public Institution Evaluation Division



 

   Since the establishment of Korea Trade Centers by the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency in 1962, overseas offices of Korea's public institutions have expanded their functions beyond trade promotion to resource development, finance, official development assistance (ODA), export of culture and content, and energy and infrastructure projects. As of the end of 2025, 715 overseas offices of 84 public institutions (including three affiliated organizations) were in operation. However, despite a significant increase in the number of overseas offices, a more integrated management framework is required to address several issues, such as the absence of a legal definition of overseas offices, the lack of clarity in the legal grounds for their establishment, functional overlap between offices within the same cities, and the need to institutionalize their operational control and performance management systems.
   Against this backdrop, this report provides a comprehensive analysis of the current operational status of overseas offices of public institutions, focusing on the adequacy of the legal grounds for the establishment of overseas offices, distribution of functions, status of human resources and budgets, operational control, performance management, and feedback mechanisms. Based on these findings, the report concludes with legislative and policy tasks for improvement.
   First, the current situation calls for a clear definition of overseas offices and aggregation criteria as well as preparation of a systematic disclosure framework. As of the end of 2025, 607 overseas offices were operated by 79 public institutions (including three affiliated organizations), incurring KRW 1.754 trillion of annual operating expenses (in 2025) and employing 5,305 personnel. Over the past five years, the scale of resources allocated to overseas offices has steadily grown, with personnel growing by 20.9% and operating expenses by 36.9%. And in the absence of a uniform legal definition of overseas offices, aggregation criteria for overseas offices vary across institutions and ministries. To address this, the government improved the overall management framework by revising the Guidelines on Innovation of Public Institutions in April 2026 to include expatriates within the scope of 'overseas offices, etc.' and require mandatory reporting of office establishment and changes within 30 days. Nevertheless, the scope of mandatory reporting is still ambiguous due to the absence of a legal definition of expatriate employees. As such, it is necessary to clearly define overseas offices and expatriate employees, establish clear aggregation criteria, and build a disclosure framework on the ALIO system that provides information on the operational status of overseas offices, including general information such as name, location, year of establishment, form of operation, and legal basis. Meanwhile, supplementary expenses such as overseas allowances, housing costs, and education expenses for children amount to approximately 1.5 times personnel costs, and in particular, interpretation of the eligibility and scope of children's education allowances vary across institutions, although the Guidelines on Innovation of Public Institutions state that such allowances shall be paid following the relevant regulations on allowances for public servants. This situation calls for establishing detailed application criteria tailored to public institutions.
   Second, the legal basis for the establishment of overseas offices need to be strengthened in phases. 68.4% of public institutions have specific legal grounds, with 40 institutions (50.6%) explicitly stipulating the legal basis for the establishment of overseas offices in the founding laws and 14 institutions (17.7%) stipulating such basis in their articles of incorporation and the basis for overseas operation in their founding laws. However, the other 25 institutions (31.6%) rely only on their articles of incorporation without any legal basis. In particular, ten overseas offices of the Agency for Defense Development, KEPCO KDN, and the Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology have no basis in either their founding laws or articles of incorporation, signifying the need to first establish relevant basis in their articles of incorporation. In addition, for institutions where overseas offices perform major business functions despite the lack of legal grounding, such as the Korea Trade Insurance Corporation, providing explicit legal grounds by revising the founding laws should be considered.
   Third, the establishment of a cooperative system among institutions performing similar functions needs to be encouraged. When the major functions of 607 overseas offices (excluding overseas subsidiaries) are classified into eight categories (i.e., trade/export/market expansion, international development cooperation, information gathering/research/networking, project development/infrastructure, finance/investment management, tourism/culture, resources/energy, technology cooperation/defense), the analysis finds that 41.0% (249 offices) are engaged in trade/export/market expansion and that 35.3% of all overseas offices are concentrated in 15 hub cities where 10 or more institutions have established their offices. Notably, a decentralized parallel structure has been identified in several hub cities where industry-specific promotion agencies operate their offices separately while performing same trade/export functions (26 offices in Hanoi, 24 in Jakarta, and 22 in Beijing). In addition, it was discovered that 20 institutions operate 75 overseas offices to perform information gathering/research/networking functions, the largest of the eight categories in terms of the number of institutions, and that more than 25% of all institutions operate offices separately for local information gathering purpose. To address this overlap, the gradual expansion of a cooperative scheme in areas where overseas offices are highly concentrated, and the sharing of physical spaces and local networks while maintaining each institution's unique industry expertise is necessary. For information gathering/research functions, efficiency can be enhanced with the help of information sharing platforms.
   Fourth, internal control and monitoring systems need to be strengthened and more actively implemented. While 73 institutions (92.4%) have regulations in place regarding the establishment and operation of overseas offices, only 32 institutions (40.5%) regularly perform internal audits to assess compliance. This indicates that nearly half of the institutions fail to check if their regulations are effectively implemented. Moreover, only 64.6% and 48.1% of institutions have adopted risk management regulations and data security guidelines, respectively, indicating vulnerability in emergency response and security management. Considering that 27 out of 79 respondents (34.2%) have received findings from external inspections by the National Assembly, the Board of Audit and Inspection, and government ministries, separate audits of overseas offices and regular inspections are an imperative. For institutions operating offices in areas with certain geopolitical risks, the government needs to mandate that they establish risk management regulations and plans for office closures and reductions in the event of an emergency.
   Fifth, performance management of overseas offices needs to be strengthened and criteria for their continuation of operation should be established. Analysis has shown that a systematic framework for performance measurement and management is lacking across 607 overseas offices. Most institutions (87%) responded that they have performance indicators for their overseas offices in place, but many are utilized merely as a formality (for instance, by incorporating performance results into head office departments' evaluations or adopting average scores). About 13 institutions had no meaningful performance management scheme in place, and the reliability of performance indicators has decreased in general; 62.9% of the indicators that can measure achievement rates recorded rates exceeding 100% and 14 institutions recorded 100% across all indicators. Meanwhile, several issues are identified where underperforming offices record higher achievement rates due to regressive targeting where high performance in the previous year leads to higher goals in the following year; evaluations rely on qualitative indicators despite the availability of quantifiable core performance outcomes; and the use of indicators not directly aligned with project objectives, which means that actual performance outcomes are not reflected in evaluations. Furthermore, only 6.3% of the institutions use evaluation outcomes to adjust their budgets and personnel, raising concerns that performance outcomes are not effectively translated into operational improvements. To address these issues, performance indicators need to be redesigned to measure actual performance, and a system that links evaluation results to budget and personnel allocation should be institutionalized.