After purchasing the right, Daewoo International plans on "renting" the brand to Daewoo affiliates like Daewoo Electronics, Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering and Daewoo Machinery.

To prepare to make the most of the purchase - the rights includes 2,800 separate brands to be used in 160 countries - Daewoo International has already formed a planning team, legal team and a brand management committee.

Hyundai Corporation also declared last month that it will foster brand royalties as one of its five new businesses and established a team specifically for designing business strategies.

The corporation is reported as having already sold the right to use the "Hyundai" brand name for $30 million to a Chinese air conditioner manufacturer in May and is in the process of concluding yet another contract worth $30 million with Chinese electrical appliance firm, Winway.

"We are now looking to forming similar contracts with electrical appliance and telecommunication manufacturers in Europe," an official at Hyundai Corp. said.

It also appears that LG International and SK Global will not be left out of the trend. Though not yet exporting under their own brand names, the two general trading companies are presently concentrating on expanding their brand value in the domestic market.

On the other hand, Samsung Corporation in August launched a brand called "Anyzone" for its hands-free telecommunication products. The name is supposed to remind consumers of Samsung Electronics' popular mobile phone brand, "Anycall."

The interest in brand values and its correlation to profits has been growing steadily over the years, but the recognition has widened to such a scale that the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy recently released a study devoted to showing the impact of brand names on a product.

One instance cited in its report was that though two brands of automobiles were produced in the same factory, the one with the "Mitsubushi" brand sold five times as many as the other in a test survey.