The eighth Southern Folk Cakes Festival in the Mekong Delta City of Can Tho will feature more than 200 booths of 19 cities and provinces from across Vietnam from April 12 to 16.

A booth sells jaggery and banh bo thot not, a type of cake made from rice flour and jaggery at the fifth Southern Folk Cakes Festival in 2016 

In addition to the delta’s traditional cakes, the event will introduce specialties from other parts of the country, as well as a wide variety of cake ingredients, traditional sweet soups and beverages. Highlights of the event will include sticky rice cakes stuffed with pork and mung beans, banana cakes, mango cakes, ginger cakes, young rice cakes, Vietnamese pancakes, and round sticky rice cakes.

The festival will also introduce typical dishes of other countries such as Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, France, Cambodia and India.

There will be an area for artisans to demonstrate their cake making skills, a corner to introduce cakes made by southern ethnic groups like Chinese, Cham and Khmer, a traditional cake making competition, and a traditional cake buffet.

Furthermore, there will be a seminar on how to find new markets for local sweet foods.

Nguyen Khanh Tung, director of the Can Tho Promotion Agency (CPA), said the Southern Folk Cakes Festival is an annual event aiming to preserve the traditional sweets of southern Vietnam and build links between local cake makers and domestic and foreign businesses.

This year’s festival, under the theme “Taste of the Southern Region,” is being organized by the CPA in coordination with the Saigon Times Group as the media sponsor.

Taking place at 108A Le Loi Street, Cai Khe Ward, Ninh Kieu District, Can Tho City, the festival will offer free admission and is expected to attract 700,000 visitors.