The Culture Ministers of Korea, China and Japan agreed to expand cultural cooperation and promote exchanges between the three countries at a trilateral meeting held in Shanghai on Saturday, officials said.

The action plan includes programs designating “cultural cities” in each of the three countries in 2014, and hosting joint art exhibitions in a way to draw interest from world’s leading traditional and modern artists. 

The annual meeting was attended by Korean Culture Minister Choe Kwang-shik, China’s Culture Minister Cai Wu and Japan’s Minister of Education, Culture Sports, Science and Technology Hirofumi Hirano. The three also agreed to find ways to improve intellectual property rights protection. The issue of protecting intellectual property will be on the agenda of next year’s meeting, officials said.

Korea’s Culture Minister Choe also called for efforts to spread hallyu by diversifying its content, saying the Korean Wave was too focused on popular culture.

“In order to aggressively expand hallyu, we need to diversify the development to include traditional culture, fine arts, fashion, literature, Korean food and others,” said Minister Choe as quoted in news report.

The minister also spoke on the anti-Korean sentiment that could spread as a side effect of hallyu.

“It (anti-Korean sentiment) is the result of a few celebrities who are not serious, so there needs to be more understanding from both sides,” he said.

“There can be misunderstandings and resentment when culture exchange is one sided, so there needs to be more exchange on both sides.”

By 2015, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism will set up a fund worth 730 billion won ($643 million) designed to nurture the country’s contents industry. This is in addition to the 1 trillion won already expected to be raised within this year.

In January, it announced plans to further promote Korean traditional culture and also inaugurated the K-Culture Promotion Taskforce which will coordinate the implementation of the plans.

The government will launch an agency to support writers for Korean content development, and a studio to attract foreign production and help indie bands make inroads into overseas markets.

The ministry also plans to start a support center to offer marketing strategy and information for companies who plan to export their content.

By Robert Lee (robert@heraldcorp.com)