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‘Gateway to Asean’: South Korea bets on Vietnam hub for food expansion

South Korean food exporters are no longer treating Vietnam as just another market for kimchi, instant noodles and premium fruit.
As Southeast Asia emerges as one…

By Samantha Johnson / July 17, 2026
South Korean food exporters are no longer treating Vietnam as just another market for kimchi, instant noodles and premium fruit.

As Southeast Asia emerges as one of South Korea’s most important trading regions, Seoul is positioning Vietnam as a logistics and distribution base for a wider push to turn the popularity of Korean culture into sustained demand for Korean food across the region.

But analysts said the strategy would depend on more than Hallyu-driven curiosity, with exporters needing to pair cultural appeal with cold-chain reliability, local adaptation and a clearer premium proposition for increasingly selective Southeast Asian consumers.

South Korea’s Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs said on July 7 that it had selected Vietnam as a regional hub for expanding the logistics, distribution and supply chains of Korean food exports to Southeast Asia, following the Asean K-Food Fair 2026 in Hanoi.

A container is loaded onto a cargo ship while docked at Hai Phong port in Vietnam in April 2025. Photo: Reuters
A container is loaded onto a cargo ship while docked at Hai Phong port in Vietnam in April 2025. Photo: Reuters

The plan includes a new multimodal logistics hub in Hanoi, built jointly by the ministry and the Korea Agro-Fisheries and Food Trade Corp – its distribution agency – to help Korean food exporters cut transport costs, preserve product quality and serve growing regional demand linked to the Hallyu wave.

The Hanoi hub will feature advanced systems to store and maintain the quality of fresh agricultural and livestock products, including rapid cooling and freezing rooms and cold-chain packaging.

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