Gwangju Nam-gu Hosts 'Sister and Friendship Cities' Direct Market at Baegun Square

Specialty products from local governments that have established sister and friendship city exchanges with Nam-gu, Gwangju Metropolitan City, visit local consumers every Saturday.

Recently, these products, along with agricultural and specialty products from the Honam region, have been gathered in one place around the Saturday night market, which has become a local attraction, drawing many people to the Baegun Plaza area.

On the 5th, Nam-gu announced, "To provide residents with specialty products from sister and friendship cities at affordable prices and to promote mutual development between these cities, a direct transaction market for agricultural and specialty products will be operated at the Baegun Plaza Street Food Zone until the end of July."

The cities participating in the direct transaction market include seven local governments among the 18 nationwide that have sister and friendship city exchanges with Nam-gu: Naju-si, Damyang-gun, Boseong-gun, Yeonggwang-gun, Wando-gun, Imsil-gun, and Jangheung-gun.

The number of participating cities is expected to increase in the future.

The agricultural and specialty products direct transaction market is held every Saturday from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Baegun Plaza Street Food Zone.

Local residents and consumers in the Gwangju area can purchase top-quality agricultural and specialty products at this market.

Only one or two companies carefully selected by each local government participate in selling specialty products at the direct transaction market.

Nam-gu has coordinated with each local government to ensure mutual development between producers and consumers and to uphold the purpose of the direct transaction market, allowing local consumers to purchase market goods at prices approximately 10-20% lower than retail prices.

Additionally, to protect consumer rights and establish fair trade practices, sellers are required to disclose their real names and indicate the origin of products. Each company will also install card terminals to provide convenience for purchasing goods.

The main items sold at the direct transaction market include representative local agricultural and specialty products such as Naju pears, shiitake mushrooms, gim (seaweed) and miyeok (wakame), jocheong (grain syrup), gim bugak (seaweed chips), cham songi mushrooms, and cham gulbi (dried yellow corvina).

Meanwhile, since the second half of 2018 during the 7th local government administration, Nam-gu has been consistently hosting mutual growth markets by inviting sister and friendship cities to connect local consumers and producers.