At one of the matching booths prepared for buyers from around the world inside aT Center in Seoul, representatives of Beisia from Japan meet their Korean counterparts during the Buy Korean Food+ trade show, Wednesday. Yonhap

Korean food exporters met hundreds of entrepreneurs and businesspeople from around the world in Seoul on Wednesday, when food makers and producers in Korea and global buyers gathered for a large-scale trade show, according to the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Wednesday.

Over 140 companies from 36 countries in the regions of East Asia, Southeast Asia, North America, Central America, Europe and the Middle East met over 270 Korean food product manufacturers, natural produce farmers and agricultural equipment manufacturers during Buy Korean Food+ at the aT Center in southern Seoul.

The trade show, continuing from Wednesday to Friday, was hosted by the ministry to bolster the exports of Korean food products and agricultural equipment. The Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corp. (aT) under the ministry, organized the event.

The event comes as instant noodles, chicken, kimchi, dried seaweed, bakeries and natural produce made and grown by Korean firms have been gaining traction in overseas markets, contributing to the country's record-high food export figures last year.

Buy Korean Food+ invited foreign companies interested in these products. The Korean organizers, prior to holding the trade show, launched a pre-event consultation session with foreign firms both online and offline to identify their needs. Arriving in Seoul, the buyers met representatives of Korean food firms from across the nation in person. The networking led some of the guests to sign import deals with the Korean firms.

Nur Qamariah Ibrahim, marketing director at Demand Pacific SDN, a Korean food importer and distributor in Selangor, Malaysia, said she came to the trade show to study Korea's current smart farm market as her country needs agricultural technologies to grow produce more stably amid the climate change crisis.

"Compared to Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines, Malaysia's counter-climate crisis management is unstable," Ibrahim said. "Besides, our company has been learning about Korea's smart farm industry through a middleman agency in Korea, poising certain limitations to the knowledge we can come across. So I wanted to talk to Korean businesspeople directly by coming here."

Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Song Mi-ryung speaks during a meeting with foreign buyers participating in the Buy Korean Food+ trade show at aT Center in Seoul, Wednesday. Yonhap

Lee Jin-gyu, chief of Korea Pear Export in Asan, South Chungcheong Province, spent Wednesday morning meeting with people from Kazakhstan to promote his fruit. He had other meetings lined up until Thursday.

"People from the Middle East and Southeast Asia particularly showed interest in our pears," Lee said. "I think I'll need to wait until tomorrow to see how much global attention we can draw."

Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Song Mi-ryung on Wednesday visited aT Center to meet some of the foreign buyers and to check the trade show in person. She met representatives from Aeon Group from Japan, Jayone Foods from the United States, JD.com from China, ParknShop from Hong Kong, Rewe from Germany and Grandiose from the United Arab Emirates.

"Last year, Korea's food and agricultural industry, despite the global economic downturn, registered the highest export figures in the country's history by reaching $12.1 billion, with $9.2 billion from Korean foods alone," Song said in a meeting with guests. "This is largely because buyers like you had good eyes to check Korea's food industry and impart what they learned to their countries."

The minister added that Korea will start bolstering partnerships between large firms and smaller firms in the country so that the latter can use the former's global trade networks to export their products. Under the minister's watch, GS25, a convenience store chain under Korean conglomerate GS Group, and Bontemps, a small-size donut maker in Korea, signed a partnership on Wednesday. The deal enabled Bontemps to sell its donuts to 500 GS25 convenience stores in Mongolia and Vietnam.