Lao food expo to cook up new business opportunities

The first Lao International Food Expo expects to expand local business export opportunities and encourage enterprises to expand distribution networks for their food products.
Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, Chairman of the Pas Project Company, Mr Souknikorn Lathsavong, said the expo will be held from March 15-19 at Lao-ITECC and is organised by the company and the Trade Promotion Department of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce.
The event expects to see more than 200 booths from enterprises in the country’s 18 provinces along with goods from Asean countries, Japan, Republic of Korea, and Australia.
Mr Souknikorn said the expo would display a wide variety of processed food, organic vegetables, One District, One Product offerings, agricultural equipment and machinery, and food from Asean countries. It will also highlight the potential of products such as tea, coffee and rice. The organisers are hopeful of attracting more than 30,000 visitors during the five days of the expo. 
“The event is a national and regional expo to boost agricultural products, which is one of the government’s priorities, and also to implement the National Socio-Economic Development Plan which focuses on promoting export products from agro-processing enterprises,” Deputy Minister of Industry and Commerce, Mr Phanthong Phitthoumma, said.
He stressed that the expo would play an important role in championing high quality Lao agricultural products as they tried to carve out their space in highly competitive regional and international markets.
According to the organisers, the event will help forge connections among producers, suppliers and trading partners as well as consumers.
The expo will especially highlight the important place of Lao rice production in the nation’s culture and history as well as disseminating information on cutting-edge technology in rice cultivation and harvesting.
The expo will feature seminars on various topics to enrich the knowledge of participants and open a consultation platform for long-established and emerging producers to exchange ideas and experiences.
Various culinary-related activities will also take place during the event such as how to eat Lao food with sticky rice, making local sweets, and learning the traditional methods of Lao rice production.

By Times Reporters
(Latest Update February 22, 2019)