Culinary fest offers taste of ASEAN
Chefs from ASEAN countries pose with their dishes during the ASEAN Culinary Festival, hosted by the ASEAN-Korea Centre, at COEX in Samseong-dong, Seoul, Wednesday. / Courtesy of ASEAN-Korea Centre
By Nam Hyun-woo
A festival offering an opportunity to taste various ASEAN cuisines took place at COEX in southern Seoul, Wednesday.
The ASEAN Culinary Festival, hosted by the ASEAN-Korea Centre, featured renowned chefs from 10 ASEAN countries, offering a chance for visitors to watch more than 30 ASEAN dishes being cooked and then sample them.
Also on the sidelines of the festival, a trade fair of 100 ASEAN restaurants and food product makers exhibited their products.
“The fair will most effectively introduce ASEAN and its products to the Korean business community as well as the general public,” said ASEAN-Korea Centre Secretary General Kim Young-sun. “It will do this by showing competitive food products of ASEAN and the wide spectrum of the region’s culinary culture by demonstrating and allowing people to taste for themselves.”
The events were held as part of the ASEAN-Korea Cultural Exchange Year and Visit ASEAN Year in 2017. Kim noted that: “At this juncture, we need to enhance the level of our exchange, cooperation and partnership between ASEAN and Korea.”
The opening ceremony was highlighted by a Pad Thai cooking exhibition by Nooror Somany Steppe, founding partner and director of Blue Elephant Restaurant & Cooking School in Bangkok.
“I’m really excited with today’s event,” she said. “Many ASEAN foods may seem similar to each other to some people, but when you look into it, you can find each country’s food has its uniqueness and differences,” she said, stressing that the event was an opportunity for her to feel the importance of ASEAN being together.
At the trade fair, officials from food product makers within and outside of Korea scoured booths to find new business opportunities. Exhibitors expressed their wish for the fair to serve as a communication channel to Korea.
“The fair is very much an opportunity to expand our businesses in Korea,” said Roberto Amores, CEO of Hi-Las Marketing Corp., a Philippines-based processed mango company which has been exporting products to Lotte, E-mart and other distributors in Korea for 15 years. “However, there are issues that we have to take care of for expansion, such as high tariffs on agricultural products in Korea, but the Korean government is not responding very well to requests for explanations on why the tariff is high.”
Korea’s mango products market is shared by exporters in Thailand, the Philippines, India and Taiwan. Following the Korea-India Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement in 2009, trade barriers between the two countries have been lowering, with tariffs on mango at 16.9 percent currently. Meanwhile, that of ASEAN remains at 24 percent.
“I hope the Korean government would be more proactive in dealing with ASEAN countries,” said Amores.
An ASEAN-Korea Centre official said that they ran the fair to better serve as a communication channel for ASEAN countries down the road.
At last year’s fair, about 2,000 business meetings were conducted between ASEAN companies and Korean buyers. This year’s event will be held until Saturday.