Jecheon: The opening of the 2025 Jecheon Korean Medicine Natural Product Industry Expo is just one month away. The expo, scheduled to open on Sept. 20 at Jecheon Oriental Medicine Expo Park in the North Chungcheong Province city, 116 kilometers southeast of Seoul, will run for a month until Oct. 19 under the theme of "Future with Natural Products, Meet a Better Future," organizers said Thursday.
According to Yonhap News Agency, Jecheon, one of the three major medicinal herb markets back in the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910), boasts a range of medicinal plants due to its naturally blessed mountainous terrain, including Mount Worak. This geographical advantage has allowed the city to serve as a hub for the distribution and production of medicinal herbs for a long time.
The upcoming expo is the third government-approved international event on oriental medicine hosted by Jecheon, following the 2010 World Oriental Medicine-Bio Expo and the 2017 Jecheon International Korean Medicine Bio Industry Expo. This year, the topic has been expanded to include natural products, a field closely related to oriental medicine. As the nation's only integrated natural products event combining industry, academia, and culture, this year's expo will offer insights into the global natural products industry.
Natural products refer to plants, animals, microorganisms, and their metabolic products obtained from nature, including herbal medicines and medical herbs. They are considered a future high value-added industry due to their usage in medicines, health foods, cosmetics, and herbal medicine products.
The expo will feature four themed exhibition halls: thematic exhibition hall for oriental medicine natural products, industry hall for oriental medicine natural products, international exchange hall for oriental medicine natural products, and experience hall for oriental medicine natural products and the Jecheon Herbal Medicine Market. It will also provide opportunities for collaboration between academia and industry through 13 academic conferences and events with the participation of domestic and international academic institutions.
The Jecheon city government and the North Chungcheong Province government said they have sold 111,744 expo tickets in advance. Ticket holders will receive free admission to Jecheon's tourist destinations, such as the Cheongpung Cultural Heritage Complex, Uirimji History Museum, and Oksunbong Suspension Bridge, and discounts when riding the cable car on Cheongpung Lake.