Gyeongsan Is Betting Its Future on K-Beauty Exports

A city that once ran on textile mills and auto-parts factories held a K-Beauty industry showcase — and the pivot feels real. The 2026 Gyeongsan K-Beauty Festa opened on October 30 at an indoor arena in Gyeongsan, North Gyeongsang Province, bringing together the city's growing cluster of cosmetics companies under one roof.

The headline story isn't a single product — it's a structural shift. Gyeongsan has built a dedicated cosmetics industrial zone spanning roughly 147,000 square meters in the Yeocheon-dong area, and the city currently counts 188 cosmetics companies operating within its boundaries. The city's pitch is that it has what the Seoul-centric beauty industry often lacks: land, a dense university population to supply R&D talent, and room to build at scale.

Two companies at the Festa stood out as examples of what the shift actually looks like on the ground. Bio Bio, a local specialty brand focused on functional foot-care cosmetics rather than general skincare, has been exhibiting at overseas trade fairs since last year and recorded export sales of USD 200,000 this year. CEO Kim Jin-i said the domestic market is too competitive for generic products, and that international buyers have responded warmly to the niche positioning. Nature 4, a cosmetics raw-material company based in the Gyeongsan Knowledge Industry Complex, takes a different route entirely — supplying high-value ingredient compounds to major brands rather than making finished products. Its current export figure sits at USD 150,000, but active export consultations with buyers in Saudi Arabia and China total approximately USD 30 million.

The city's support infrastructure is built around a Global Cosmetic Business Center that meets CGMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) standards and offers what the city describes as a one-stop system covering R&D, prototype production, overseas marketing, and export guidance. Local university students majoring in beauty-related fields are being folded into the program through industry-academia partnerships.

Gyeongsan Mayor Jo Hyeon-il framed the initiative as the city's core growth engine for the next hundred years — a significant statement from a city that previously anchored the Yeongnam regional economy through manufacturing. Whether Gyeongsan becomes a genuine K-Beauty production hub or remains a regional experiment is still an open question, but the infrastructure investment and the export numbers coming out of even early-stage companies suggest this is more than a branding exercise.