KUALA LUMPUR, April 22 — More local agro-based industry products are expected to penetrate the international market through strategic public-private sector collaborations via the empowerment of single branding under the Malaysian Export Management Company–EMC (MyEMC) initiative.
Agriculture and Food Industry Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ronald Kiandee said that under the initiative, the effort to explore the international market was consolidated through strengthening the role of the Malaysian company as EMC Malaysia abroad.
“This initiative is a strategic public-private sector collaboration with the involvement of related industry players comprising production entrepreneurs, exporters, foreign importers and marketers abroad.
“It is aimed at overcoming the problems of market entry, marketing and also promotion of agro-food products in an importing country,” he said after the flagging off session for exports of agro-food products to Japan here today.
The flag off session, implemented by EMC in Japan, namely, SD Impex Japan Co Ltd was also attended by Federal Agricultural Marketing Authority (FAMA) director-general Datuk Zainal Abidin Yang Razalli and Agriculture and Food Industry Ministry (MAFI) Business Development and Investment Division (BDI) Secretary Khalid Ibrahim.
For the time being, he said MAFI was focusing on strengthening three EMCs in Japan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and southern Thailand.
“Towards this end, MAFI also invites any producing company and local entrepreneurs wanting to develop partnerships with the ministry under the single branding initiative, MyKitchen for the penetration of global market in other countries,” he said.
He said that the strategic co-operation with SD Impex Japan Co., Ltd had succeeded in boosting export to 992 cartons involving 36 Stock Keeping Units (SKU) comprising of over 50,000 units of Ready to Eat (RTE), Ready to Drink (RTD) and Ready to Cook (RTC) products.
These were the products of 13 producing companies and entrepreneurs nationwide and placed under the single branding initiative MyKitchen, he said.
He said the success indirectly could contribute to an increase in the value of agro-food trade between Malaysia and Japan this year, compared to USD$1.21 billion (RM5.18 billion) recorded last year, which will contribute to the recovery trend and foreign market access to Malaysian branded products,” he said.
He said as of April, 70 SKU of selected agro-food products had been promoted and marketed in Japan compared to only 12 SKU when the initiative was introduced in 2020.
Ronald had earlier witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between SD Impex Japan Co Ltd with agro-food entrepreneurs for the promotion and marketing of the products to Japan and simultaneously strengthening the brand MyKitchen and MyKitchen Fresh in Japan.
