By Honorary Reporter Isabelle Pia Sison from the Philippines

Photos= Isabelle Pia Sison

President Moon Jae-in on Nov. 26 welcomes representatives from the cultural content industry and Southeast Asia to the ASEAN-ROK Cultural Innovation Summit in Busan.

The ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations)-ROK (Republic of Korea) Culture Innovation Summit was held in Busan on Nov. 25 as part of the ASEAN-ROK Commemorative Summit.

The former is a celebration of cultural content as a driving force for economic growth and aims to promote cultural cooperation with the ASEAN region and Korea.

Hallyu is a worldwide phenomenon but other Korean industries such as trade and tourism have rapidly expanded through the Korean Wave's positive influence on consumer demand. The cultural innovation summit highlighted the success stories of the Korean cultural industry, shared the strategies of leading companies in this sector and recognized ASEAN's potential to create its own cultural content.

President Moon Jae-in said in his welcoming speech at the summit, "Spices from Southeast Asia transformed culinary arts worldwide as well as the history of international trade. In the same way, the colors and flavors of the 10 ASEAN states have festooned 'K-culture,' turning it into a diverse cultural banquet and helping it emerge as new cultural content. ASEAN’s content market is growing by at least 8% annually, inspiring the dreams of future generations."

He also said ASEAN cultures are known worldwide and have unlimited potential. He cited as examples of renowned artists from the region Philippine singer Freddie Aguilar, whose 1978 hit "Anak" was sung in his mother tongue of Tagalog, and Thai film director Apichatpong Wirasetthakun, who won the top prize at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival for "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives."

Leading figures from the cultural content industry also spoke at the summit, including Bang Si-hyuk, CEO of Big Hit Entertainment, the management agency of super K-pop group BTS; Netflix founder and CEO Reed Hastings; SK Telecom CEO Park Jung-ho; French animation director Pierre Coffin; and Brian Chow, CEO of Idea Music Entertainment Group.

Bang's presentation featured examples of how the group's supporters freely translate all BTS content on YouTube and how BTS utilized technology. He discussed the potential for the joint development of the Korean and ASEAN cultural content industries through K-pop and other genres, saying, "Invest in people. They will be the growth engine of ASEAN in the hyper-connected era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution."

Hastings said Hallyu content is greatly affecting the global market based on its excellent storytelling, and announced a partnership with domestic content companies such as CJ ENM and JTBC on the supply of K-dramas. Also mentioning the huge success of the original Netflix series from Korea "Kingdom," he said his company will expand its investment in content production in Korea and ASEAN.

chaey0726@korea.kr

*This article is written by a Korea.net Honorary Reporter. Our group of Honorary Reporters are from all around the world, and they share with Korea.net their love and passion for all things Korean.