Gyeongnam Jinju K-Entrepreneurship Foundation and Jinju City said on the 4th that "Jinju K-Entrepreneurship International Forum" was finally selected as a regional signature international conference in the 2026 Global K-Convention Promotion Program competition.
The Global K-Convention Promotion Program is hosted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and organized by the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO). It aims to discover domestic conventions with international competitiveness to attract overseas visitors and revitalize the MICE (meetings, incentives, conventions, exhibitions) industry. This year, a total of eight conferences were selected in three institutional sectors, and in the regional signature international conference institutional sector, five locations were selected nationwide. In the Gyeongsang region, only Jinju City was selected.
The Jinju K-Entrepreneurship International Forum is hosted by the Jinju K-Entrepreneurship Foundation and supported by Jinju City. It is an international conference that presents a new entrepreneurship that inherits the spirit of the founders of leading domestic corporations such as LG, GS, Samsung and Hyosung.
Regarding this selection, Jinju City said, "It is significant in that it proves competitiveness by combining international tourism and conventions based on the region's unique content." Earlier, Seungsan Village in Jisu-myeon, Jinju City, was named in the United Nations World Tourism Organization's "Best Tourism Villages."
This year's forum will be held Oct. 18–20. International organizations, domestic and overseas institutions and universities, including the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the International Council for Small Business (ICSB), the Korean Academy of Management, and the University of Hong Kong, will participate. Navid Hanif, UN ECOSOC assistant secretary-general; Ayman El Tarabishy, ICSB president; and Lee Won-ik, Lockheed Martin Global Korea country head, will serve as keynote speakers.
In particular, this year, a region-specific session that applies entrepreneurship to the aerospace and defense sectors will present a new direction of discussion that fuses industry and values.
The Jinju K-Entrepreneurship Foundation plans to use the national funds secured this time to invite world-class speakers, build an eco-friendly ESG (environmental, social, governance) event, and advance an operating system that meets international standards. With this project selection, the foundation can receive a total of 600 million won in national funding for up to four years. Jinju City said, "Beyond simple financial support, it is highly symbolic in that it has been officially recognized as a national-level convention."
Kim Jong-uk, chair of the Jinju K-Entrepreneurship Foundation, said, "It is an important turning point that shows the agenda is being set not only regionally but globally," adding, "We will continue to develop the international forum and grow it with the goal of becoming a Davos Forum for Asia."