Lotte discounts Vietnamese goods

Vietnam’s Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Ho Thi Kim Thoa, third from right, at Lotte Mart in Jamsil, southern Seoul, Thursday. [LOTTE MART]

Lotte Mart is holding a special event promoting Vietnamese products at major branches in the greater Seoul area for a week to celebrate the cooperative relationship between the two countries.

Lotte Mart on Thursday kicked off a promotional special event that will run through Nov. 4 at six of its major branches: Seoul Station, Songpa, Jamsil and Guro in Seoul, and Uiwang and Guri in Gyeonggi.

This is the fifth time that Korean retailers have held such an event, first kicking off a special promotional event introducing Southeast Asian products to Korean consumers in 2011.

The products being introduced to Korean consumers have been selected after a review of 100 companies at the retailer’s branch in South Saigon in June.

Some of the products ? including the popular G7 mix coffee ? are being sold at a 20 to 30 percent discount.

At the event’s opening ceremony at Lotte Mart’s Jamsil branch in southeastern Seoul, dignitaries from the Vietnamese government attended, including Deputy Minister of Vietnam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade Ho Thi Kim Thoa, and Vietnamese ambassador to Korea Pham Huu Chi.

The Korean retailer said it first entered the Vietnamese market seven years ago, in December 2008.

BY LEE HO-JEONG [lee.hojeong@joongang.co.kr]