There are many similarities between South Korea, Egypt at the cultural level, said South Korean Ambassador to Egypt, Hong Jin Wook.
He stressed that his country considers itself a loyal friend to Egypt and a strategic partner in the region.
Ambassador Hong stressed that there is a need to exert more effort to publicize Korea and revitalize relations between the two countries.
His remarks came during a seminar on the survey results on the Egyptian people’s images of Korea at the Four Seasons hotel on Monday, in cooperation with Mediance, a Korean marketing company in Cairo alongside Nagy research, a research agency also in Cairo, inviting various Korea-related groups such as Egyptian Foreign Ministry officials, professors and students from the Korean Language Department of Ain Shams University, Egyptian journalists, Korean correspondents and Egypt-Korea Digital Ambassadors(EKDA) appointed by the Korean Embassy last September.
The research based on responses from 1,000 Egyptians all across the Egyptian territory was initiated on July of this year for the first time since the establishment of the Korean Embassy to better understand Egyptian people’s perception on Korea, thereby obtaining valuable lessons for the Embassy’s public diplomacy strategies, which aims to lead more Egyptians to consider Korea as a closer and friendlier partner country.
Among others, the most remarkable part of the results was that more than 90% of the respondents expressed their positive sentiment toward Korea (66% highly positive and 26% somewhat positive) and the dominant keywords to describe Koreans were creative, orderly, well-disciplined, active followed by hard working, sincere and open.
Reflecting the huge popularity of Korean movies worldwide, half of the survey participants chose Korean films in terms of preferred cultural aspect of their interests followed by Korean food (46%), K-pop/music (44%), Korean entertainment shows (41%) and Korean beauty (39%).
Interestingly, aside from electronic appliances, mobile phones and passenger cars which already occupy a huge part of the local market, the respondents also showed their interests in Korean medical (41%) and skincare (37%) products as desired items to be seen in Egypt.
In the aspect of Korea’s image related to Covid-19, the respondents said that they have encountered Korean government’s response after Covid-19 (72%), Korea’s assistance to Egypt fighting Covid-19 (61%), Korean government’s aid in medical expenses for treating infected people (47%) and rapid Covid-19 testing (45%).
Since the research was carried out through online polling considering Covid-19 situation, approximately 70% of the sample groups were concentrated between the age of 16 to 30, therefore, the survey results are deemed somewhat future-oriented. These young groups showed their interest in participating more in Korea-related on/offline events in spite of the pandemic situation to better know about Korea.
Ambassador Hong said that recognizing the importance of public diplomacy to make our two countries’ great relations sustainable and future-oriented, he will set up a meticulous and customer-friendly plan for the Embassy’s public diplomacy programs for 2022 reflecting the survey results and the voices from today’s attendees.
