- Discusses expanding cultural exchanges with World K-Pop Center

World K-Pop Center, a global K-pop talent training organization held a meeting with Peruvian Ambassador to Korea Paul Fernando Duclos Parodi to strengthen communication 

and cooperation in expanding bilateral cultural exchanges, the center announced on Jan. 15.

Amb. Paul Duclos toured the center's training facilities and encouraged Peruvian girls who are training for K-pop auditions at the center. The K-pop project in Peru has been gaining momentum 

recently, with a K-pop audition award ceremony held at Lima City Hall two months ago.

This is a good indication of the current status of K-pop. K-pop has become the center of a culture that everyone wants to learn and enjoy, not just artists. 

The World K-Pop Center, which has been running a global K-pop talent development project in 32 countries since 2023, said, "For a long time, we have been working closely with Korean ambassadors overseas and foreign ambassadors in Korea with the goal of building a global K-pop education infrastructure and eliminating K-pop blind spots, as well as various institutional companies that are expanding globally."

Last year, the World K-Pop Center hosted the Seoul Global Festa with the Korea Importers Association, inviting all 70 ambassadors to Korea to pledge cultural exchange cooperation.

On December 29 last year, it hosted "Click the Star in Seoul" with the Seoul Business Agency (SBA) to celebrate the launch of the entire 32-country season of Click the Star, inviting many ambassadors to the festival and raising interest in K-pop to a new high. 

In particular, as global influencers from 50 countries participated in the event, there are great expectations for the spread of K-pop culture.

In Peru, South America, the Click the Star project is unique for a reason. The idea of creating a national girl group representing each country, rather than a multinational group, is a unique opportunity for Peru, which has been unable to meet the demand for K-pop due to poor accessibility and lack of infrastructure.

The World K-Pop Center explained, "We wanted to prove that we can go to any continent and there are no restrictions, so we chose South America on the other side of the world for the first season of the project."

For the first time in the first season of "Click the Star in Seoul," the contestants who participated in the final debut survival through local qualifying and main rounds appeared on stage and attracted attention. 

Many people of the upcoming host countries, including Indonesia, Vietnam, Mongolia, Cambodia, Turkiye, and India, which are set to launch after Peru, also attended the event, drawing a blueprint for their own K-pop auditions and wishing them congratulations and success for the launch of the entire season.

Meanwhile, Korea and Peru celebrated the 61st anniversary of diplomatic relations this year, and Peru was selected to host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in 2024 and Korea in 2025, and the APEC chairmanship will be transferred from Peru to Korea in the future. 

Under the agreement, the two countries have been actively cooperating in the fields of digital and AI, and this K-Pop project is expected to be a driving force for cultural exchanges such as K-POP and K-culture.