Hanoi (VNA) – A Vietnam - the Republic ofKorea (RoK) business exchange was held in Hanoi on March 22, aiming to introduceVietnam’s agricultural products to two major retail firms of the RoK – K-holdingsand Coupang.

The RoK firms were interested in importing spices,packed products made of rice, frozen seafood, dried fruits, coffee, chocolate,cashew, peppercorn, dried meat, fresh fruits, and other processed food products,from Vietnam.

Currently, the RoK is among important strategicpartners of Vietnam and the country’s leading investor.

According to Do Kim Lang, Vice Director of the TradePromotion Agency under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, thanks to theVietnam-RoK free trade agreement, from December 2015, the RoK has become thethird biggest trade partner of Vietnam after China and the US.

In 2017, two-way trade reached 61.5 billion USD, up 41percent year on year, including Vietnam’s exports of 14.8 billion USD, a riseof 30 percent over 2016.

Popular Vietnamese products in the RoK includedaquatic products, cassava and cassava products.

In the first two months of 2018, Vietnam earned 2.79million USD in the RoK market, a surge of 44 percent over the same time lastyear, noted Lang.

Meanwhile, Nguyen Minh Duong, Director of Minh Duongcompany said that his firm is selling its products such as potato, sweetpotato, cashew and dried products through such big distributors as Big C andVingroup.

He said that Vietnamese farm products have beenaccepted in China and the RoK, adding that the firm has exported a large amountof products to the two markets and is seeking to expand the market.

Bui Viet Truong, Third Secretary of Office for TradeAffairs under the Vietnamese Embassy in the RoK said that each year, the RoKspends about 33 billion USD to import agro-fishery products.

However, he held that Vietnam should seek solutions tofurther its presence in the market as currently only five Vietnamese fruits areallowed to be sold in the RoK, including pineapple, coconut, dragon fruit,mango, and banana.

In the coming time, Coupang, the leading onlineshopping company of the RoK, will give a space in its website to introduceVietnamese foodstuff. It aims to sell about 1,800 products of Vietnam via itswebsite in 2019.

Experts advised that Vietnamese firms should paygreater attention to design and packaging of their products, while updatingquarantine regulations in the market.-VNA