Thread by @cnnphilippines

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Korean Chamber of Commerce Philippines President Lee Ho Ik: K-Wave, Hallyu is a global phenomenon. It means K-Pop, K-dramas, K movies.

KCCC says the K-Wave boosted Korean businesses in PH: It has a positive effect. There are many Korean restaurants like samgyeopsal, Korean groceries. This is good for Korean businessmen operating here, Filipinos too.

KCCC says Filipino workers in South Korea may also set up their own Korean businesses upon their return to PH given the K-Wave phenomenon.

What do Koreans love about PH? KCCC: The country has a lot of advantages such as beautiful sceneries: white beach sea, coconut trees. Geographically, PH has a good location – it’s only a 3-hour flight.

KCCC says population of Koreans in PH “dramatically” increased during late 2000s: Korean tourists in PH lately hit almost 2M every year…tourism is also one of the key factors to boost the local economy.

KCCC: Majority of Korean retail firms like restaurants closed due to the pandemic. Almost 90% of retail shops closed, they went back to Korea.

KCCC: We have the vaccine now and PH will be normal soon, economy will recover. The [average] 2M tourists will come back here. This is the time to prepare for what happens after the pandemic.

ShowBT Philippines CEO Charles Kim on creating K-Pop groups: It’s about the fundamental system we’re building. From the cast of the talents, then we train them under specific systems and repeat.

ShowBT Philippines: Every day, one K-Pop group debuts. There are around 160 groups per year but only a few succeed.

You’re the company training SB19. What do you look for in talents? ShowBT Philippines: We look for their passions, being eager to be stars…they put everything up there to be stars, they’re going there now.

ShowBT Philippines says each SB19 member has a ‘distinctive nature’: There’s no redundancy among them. For example: in musicality Pablo leads, composes their lyrics. In dance, Ken is like a natural-born great dancer. Josh is a good rapper. We keep them training.

ShowBT Philippines says SB19 also has collector’s items: We collaborate with local designer Chynna Mawal, she produced premium merch fitting the boys’ characters. We had limited editions for it, this had great public response.

When will you form a girl group? ShowBT Philippines: We already have trainees for it, they’re doing fundamentals: dance and vocal trainings. Due to the pandemic, we’re training them online. Once lockdown’s lifted, we’ll train them together in one place.

ShowBT Philippines: When we made SB19, we had 5 members but it doesn’t mean we only have 5 trainees. We have around 20 trainees by then, we selected 5 to create SB19. Same goes for our girl group.

ShowBT Philippines says they will announce by September the name of their new girl group and its members.

Can SB19 be the next BTS? ShowBT Philippines: Yes, for sure, we’re ready for world domination together with SB19 fans. I'm very sure we’re aiming for a Billboard win this 2022.

Hyundai Asia Resources president & CEO Ma. Fe Perez-Agudo: This K-Wave, Hallyu phenomenon was really able to penetrate Filipinos’ soft spot: love for family, eating and communal style of dining.

Perez-Agudo says Filipinos were able to connect to storylines, production value of K-dramas: And of course, the good-looking actors were able to foster a sense of bonding among fans especially millennials who are in social media.

Perez-Agudo on favorite Korean content: All my nephews love dancing to Dynamite [by BTS]. I love Descendants of the Sun, Crash Landing on You…I don’t have a particular favorite K-drama, I love most, all of them.

Perez-Agudo says Hallyu a factor driving demand for Korean brands in the Philippines, which includes Hyundai.

Perez-Agudo on how Hyundai is coping amid pandemic: During last year’s lockdown, we didn’t stop. We knew this’ll be a long haul, we started working instead of just going by the lockdown. I told my team we’ll do a transformation: let’s work physical and digital.

Perez-Agudo says Hyundai first took care of health guidelines, protocols to make people feel safe when entering showrooms, after-sales service centers.

Perez-Agudo notes Hyundai’s strong participation in government’s modernization program: We rolled out all our projects in accordance with DOTR’s guidelines. So far we had great strides in our modernized PUJs.