Lotte said on the 22nd it will host the "Lotte-Korea Brand Expo" in Vienna, Austria, from the 23rd to the 25th.
The Lotte-Korea Brand Expo is a co-growth program to support overseas expansion by outstanding Korean small and midsize enterprises. Lotte, the Foundation for Large, Small and Medium Business and Agriculture and Fisheries Cooperation, and the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) are co-hosting.
The Lotte-Korea Brand Expo has been held 20 times in 17 countries, including Taiwan in 2016 as the start, and Germany, the United States, Australia, and Vietnam. Centered on export consultations and local promotions, Lotte is helping small and midsize enterprises achieve results that lead to actual sales.
As of the first half of this year, about 1,460 small and midsize enterprises participated on a cumulative basis, with a total of about 10,380 export consultations conducted. The consultation scale amounts to $1.15 billion (about 1.65 trillion won).
This Vienna event will feature 50 outstanding Korean small and midsize enterprises across diverse fields such as beauty, food, and household goods. Lotte plans to invite more than 200 buyers from 76 European countries, including Germany, Hungary, and Romania, and hold export consultations targeting the local market.
A consumer (B2C) exhibition and sales zone will also operate to directly gauge local consumer responses and serve as a venue to assess product competitiveness and directions for improvement. In addition, side events that combine Korean culture and products, such as a K-beauty showcase, cooking shows, and Korean Wave performances, will be arranged to boost local engagement.
Austria is regarded as a key Central European market with high per capita GDP and purchasing power among OECD members. With interest in Korean consumer goods such as K-beauty and K-food rapidly expanding across Europe, the expo is expected to serve as a bridgehead for participating corporations to enter Europe.
Kang Kyung-sung, president of KOTRA, said, "As we enter the golden time of K-culture, we need to further strengthen cooperation with distribution networks to expand exports of culture-linked consumer goods and improve K-export infrastructure," adding, "KOTRA will work with the private sector, including Lotte, to expand co-prosperity-type overseas expansion for large and small companies using K-culture as a medium, and support the sustained export growth of our small and midsize enterprises."
A Lotte official said, "The brand expo is a co-growth program that helps Korean small and midsize enterprises expand overseas through Lotte's distribution capabilities and global network," adding, "In particular, we will actively support efforts to prove the competitiveness of Korean products in the Central European market, where purchasing power is high, and to expand export performance by small and midsize enterprises."