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Nowadays, a whopping number people from across the globe travel to Asia. Thailand, in particular, is one of the best-known tourist destinations, known to have about 15 million travellers annually. Undoubtedly, Thailand has a variety of things to showcase, including centuries-old relics of Buddhist culture, beautiful landscapes and broad-minded people with positive thinking, just to name a few.

All countries in the region hope to nurture a better understanding of their essential values. The values they want to promote are not those reinterpreted from a Western perspective, but those that Asians consider genuinely Asian.

Asian countries have their own cultural legacies and features distinguished from those on different continents. To efficiently publicise what is truly Asian, it is necessary for Asian countries to join hands.

Since 2005, South Korea's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has been carrying out a Cultural Partnership Initiative (CPI) with other Asian countries. It aims at exchanging artists and other cultural figures between nations in order to encourage them to learn about other cultures and deepening mutual understanding and cooperation.

Under the initiative, 25 prominent artists and researchers from Thai cultural circles have visited South Korea, learning about Korean culture and teaching Koreans about Thai culture.

Thailand has a remarkable reputation in the field of tourism among other things, and that makes the Kingdom a natural leader in identifying and publicising uniquely Asian values. A viable window of Asian culture, Thailand has long accumulated an abundance of experiences in nurturing a high degree of inter-cultural sensitivity and cooperation.

South Korea wants to collaborate with Thailand and other Asean countries in creating and disseminating Asian cultural and artistic brands and introducing them in the global market. To this end, the South Korean government is willing to provide human resources as well as material assistance and other forms of cooperation. As hundreds of thousands of South Korean tourists visit Bangkok each year, their understanding of the Kingdom will increase, prompting additional cultural exchange. It is my hope that these exchanges will serve as a catalyst for jointly coming up with Asian brands representing Asian values and culture.

CONTRIBUTED BY MINISTER OF CULTURE, SPORTS AND TOURISM YU IN-CHON OF THE REPUBLIC OF KOREA