'Gyeonggi International Webtoon Fair' Records $22.8 Million Export Consultation with 13 Countries

Gyeonggi Province has transformed the '2026 Gyeonggi International Webtoon Fair' into a business-to-business (B2B) focused event this year, expanding practical business cooperation opportunities and recording a record-breaking $22.8 million in export consultations.

Gyeonggi Province announced on the 22nd that it held the '2026 Gyeonggi International Webtoon Fair' at the Bucheon Webtoon Convergence Center from September 17 to 18 together with the Gyeonggi Content Promotion Agency, resulting in the participation of 128 companies from 13 countries, conducting a total of 609 business consultations and $22.8 million in export consultations. Last year's Gyeonggi International Webtoon Fair recorded $18.5 million in export consultations.

The province restructured the event this year by minimizing general public-focused events (B2C) and concentrating on business-to-business (B2B) transactions, further strengthening the overseas expansion of domestic webtoon companies. At professional business consultation sessions, domestic and international webtoon companies and buyers conducted one-on-one consultations in various fields including webtoon intellectual property (IP) export and distribution, co-production, and investment. Participating companies discussed concrete cooperation possibilities including overseas market entry, content distribution, and joint business ventures.

At the 'Global Webtoon Seminar' held on the 17th, expert presentations and discussions continued on topics including Japan's manga industry success system, Korean webtoon opportunities and challenges from the Japanese market perspective, and Korean webtoon IP global expansion strategies.

Matsui Eigen, former editor-in-chief of Shueisha, a Japanese manga and entertainment specialty publisher, introduced the system through which 'Weekly Shonen Jump' has discovered popular works for over 40 years. Takeshi Kikuchi, director of the Manga Research Institute, discussed opportunities and challenges of Korean webtoons from the Japanese market perspective, and Kang Tae-jin, CEO of Coniist Co., Ltd., shared global expansion cases and related data on Korean webtoon intellectual property.

The 'World Cartoon and Webtoon Critics Conference' held on the 18th included domestic and international cartoon and webtoon experts from the United States, Japan, France, and other countries. Participants discussed 'cartoon literacy,' the competency to read and understand cartoons, and its connection possibilities to the webtoon industry, and explored the cultural value of cartoons and webtoons and the direction for industry development.

Gyeonggi Province also held a 'Global Webtoon Seminar' in Tokyo, Japan on August 26 to continue inter-company exchange from overseas locations. Forty-six Korean and Japanese webtoon companies participated to share industry trends and overseas expansion strategies, and among them, 12 Korean companies and 14 Japanese companies also participated in business consultation sessions.