The 37th International Food and Beverage Exhibition (Foodex Japan 2012)was opened at Makuhari Messe exhibition centre in Japan’s easternprovince of Chiba on Mar. 6.

The exhibitionattracted the participation of more than 2,000 enterprises from 72countries and territories, including 11 Vietnamese companies fromvarious regions. The attending enterprises are all rich in experience ofcommercial promotion for agriculture, foods and beverage products, aswell as competence in manufacturing and export.

Atthis year’s exhibition, Vietnamese companies display their strength inagriculture products such as coffee, vegetable, processed foods andfruit juice.

Dao Van Ho, Director of the TradePromotion Centre for Agriculture under the Ministry of Agriculture andRural Development (MARD), said this is an important event to the foodand drink processing sector of Vietnam and a chance to step up exportsto Japan .

He expressed the hope that throughthe exhibition Vietnamese enterprises will find new trade partners andexpand their cooperation through signing valuable export contracts.

In a related activity, MARD in coordination with the VietnameseEmbassy in Japan and Japan ’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry andFisheries held a conference to foster export of agro-forestry andfishery products to Japan . Other meetings between MARD, Vietnamesecompanies and many Japanese associations and enterprises were also held.

First held in 1976, Foodex Japan has become the biggest annual food and beverage exhibition in Asia .

Foodex Japan 2012 will run until Mar. 9.-VNA