LS Cable promotes baduk board game in Vietnam

LS Cable & System Ltd., South Korea's top wire and cable maker, said Wednesday it hoped to promote baduk in Vietnam by hosting a national tournament in the key Asian market. The LS-Vietnam Baduk Championship began on Tuesday for a four-day run in Ho Chi Minh City. South Korea's popular board game is gaining traction in the neighboring country, the cable maker said in a release. Vietnam sent a national team to the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games where baduk, also known as 'weiqi' and 'go' in China and Japan, featured as an official game. South Korea won three gold medals in baduk. Since breaking into the Vietnamese market in 1996, LS Cable has opened two local offices with around 600 employees on its payrolls, it said. Vietnam became one of the key overseas markets for LS Cable, which posts US$350 million in revenues annually there. LS Cable has no professional stake in the game of baduk but chairman Christopher Koo, a baduk enthusiast himself, promised continuous support for the game in Vietnam, the company said.