A large-scale "Korea Pavilion" will be established at the Qingdao International Beer Festival in China, one of Asia's largest festivals.
According to the Korean joint organizing group (TIE, Made in Focus, and Wakero), which co-planned the project, the Korea Pavilion will introduce domestic companies' products directly to Chinese consumers, the group said Wednesday. The strategy is to simultaneously pursue on-site sales, product promotion, and brand awareness to connect them to tangible export results.
Running for one month from July 17 to August 16, the Qingdao International Beer Festival is a global festival representing China. Last year alone, it drew 22.48 million visitors and is known to have generated economic effects worth approximately 8 trillion won.
Beyond simple exhibition participation or cultural exchange events, the core of this project is to simultaneously support local sales of Korean small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) products in China and their entry into online distribution networks. It aims to directly showcase promising domestic consumer goods such as K-food, K-beauty, and household consumer products to Chinese consumers, while securing a long-term distribution foundation.
In particular, the project features an integrated distribution model combining online and offline channels. During the festival, it will conduct live commerce using famous Chinese wanghong (influencers) alongside on-site booth sales to expand consumer touchpoints. Afterward, it plans to link participating companies to the Korea Pavilion within JD.com, China's leading e-commerce platform, to support their continued entry into the Chinese online market.
TIE, which oversees the project, signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) last month with Qingdao Laoshan Tourism Group, the official state-owned enterprise organizing the Qingdao International Beer Festival, and with Qingdao Shua International Trade Co., a local distribution company. Through this, it built a cooperative framework necessary for festival operation and use of local distribution networks, laying the foundation for the project.
The industry sees the project as a new opportunity for domestic SMEs that have struggled to enter the Chinese market. Amid renewed interest in K-content and K-brands in the Chinese market recently, companies can directly verify their product competitiveness by leveraging large-scale consumer touchpoints.
Sodomall, designated as the official domestic agency, will handle recruitment of participating companies, application processing, and customs clearance and export support. Through this, it plans to support SMEs in entering the local market more systematically while reducing the burden of complex procedures for entering China.
"This project is not simply about participating in a festival, but a business to build a tangible export platform that combines an offline mega festival with online distribution networks," said Lee Yu-na, CEO of TIE. "We will inform Chinese consumers of the competitiveness of Korean SME products and create successful cases of entry into China."
