KOTRA Opens 'Seoul Food 2020' Online Exhibition Hall

Online Consultation Meeting Held with 800 Companies from 70 Countries Overseas Buyers Participating

KOTRA is launching the online exhibition hall for 'SEOUL FOOD,' the largest food specialty exhibition in Korea. The photo shows a Korean food company having an online export consultation with an overseas buyer. (Photo by KOTRA)

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Ji-hee] KOTRA announced on the 24th that it will open an online exhibition hall for 'SEOUL FOOD,' the largest food specialty exhibition in Korea, and hold a video consultation meeting with 800 overseas buyers participating.

This year, the export value of Korean agricultural and food products recorded $2.38 billion until April, showing a 3.8% increase compared to the same period last year. Accordingly, KOTRA is strengthening its Ontact (Online Contact) marketing to continue the export growth trend.

In particular, since the outbreak of COVID-19, the home economy sector has emerged, and as consumers prefer safe food, exports of Korean agricultural and food products are increasing. Kimchi (30.7%) and ramen (34.5%) have grown by more than 30%, and frozen convenience foods and health supplements are also showing favorable trends.

In response to COVID-19, KOTRA fully revamped the online export platform 'BuyKorea' last February. It established online Korean pavilions for each overseas exhibition and special online pavilions by industry. Additionally, a video system enabling online consultations was built. Over three months, a total of 7,200 consultations were conducted, resulting in export contracts worth approximately $140 million.

The SEOUL FOOD video consultation meeting, held for three days starting on the 25th, will have 500 Korean companies and 800 overseas buyers from 70 countries participating. It is the largest scale among KOTRA's non-face-to-face projects.

Kwon Pyung-oh, President of KOTRA, stated, "We plan to carefully select buyers with high contract potential from this online consultation and invite them to the SEOUL FOOD exhibition scheduled for September."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.