PETALING JAYA, June 15 (Bernama) -- The Halal Development Corporation Berhad (HDC) is bridging the global halal markets with physical and hybrid participation in two international expositions and business meetings in both the Arab Republic of Egypt and the Republic of Korea.
HDC, as the central coordinator of the Malaysia’s halal ecosystem, aims to increase the market penetration rate of Malaysian halal products in Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Africa’s largest food and beverage market and the region’s most dynamic consumer goods market, with their participation in Fi Africa in Cairo from 29 - 31 May, 2022.
The newest member of the Fi Global portfolio and launched in 2021 as part of Africa Food Manufacturing and co-located with ProPak MENA, Fi Africa is a dedicated show for food and beverage ingredients sector, offering a 365 marketplace for the African community to interact, network and build knowledge around the latest industry trends through online and physical opportunities.
The HDC Pavilion in Fi Africa showcased a variety of Malaysian-made halal products and services from 12 Malaysian halal-certified companies. Three major Malaysian companies were present physically at Fi Africa, including F&N Dairies Malaysia Manufacturing Sdn Bhd, Munif Hijjaz Marketing Sdn Bhd, and Koon Brother Sdn Bhd.
Visitors to HDC Pavilion also had the opportunity to access virtually over 350 Malaysian halal-certified products from 100 local companies, via HDC’s Digital Augmented Reality Showcase of Halal Malaysia (DASH) app. These include products from various key halal retail segments including Food & Beverage, Halal Ingredients, Cosmetic & Personal Care, Pharmaceuticals, even Modest Fashion.
HDC anticipated more than MYR6.55 million worth of potential sales from the 22 companies participated in the “Business-to-Business” (B2B) meeting sessions held during the expo with potential buyers from five (5) countries including Qatar, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates and Iran.
After Cairo, the HDC team traveled an hour south of Egypt to Sharm El-Sheikh, to attend the Islamic Development Bank’s (IsDB) Group Private Sector Forum (PSF 2022). This is an annual gathering of IsDB’s Group private sector development representatives from multiple sectors, to network and establish business relations and partnerships between IsDB Group member countries.
HDC’s Chief Industry Development Officer Hanisofian Alias, delivered a keynote address and acted as a panelist during a session on “Rejuvenating Halal Industry, Creating Economic Opportunities” which was held on 4th June 2022.
An exhibition has been organised for three days, with HDC given the opportunity to further showcase Halal offerings and services and to promote Malaysia’s halal industry potentials and opportunities to IsDB Group members.
“Through both our participations in Egypt, HDC had sought to increase the penetration of Malaysian halal products and services within the MENA and global markets and also to improve the competitiveness of local halal manufacturers and businesses.” said Hairol Ariffein Sahari, Chief Executive Officer of HDC.
“We also wanted to explore the potential of recognizing Egypt as a one-stop halal sourcing hub for the latest and most innovative packaging, processing, ingredients and logistics solutions for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, as well as Africa continent. ” he added.
As for the East Asia region, the HDC team continued its outreach through participation in Seoul Food & Hotel (SFH 2022), happening from 7 - 10 June, 2022. in Seoul, Republic of Korea.
The SFH is an annual event co-organized by KOTRA and Informa Markets with a long history of success stories connecting the key domestic and international business together in Korea.
This is HDC’s third (3rd) outing in SFH, having achieved MYR3.83 million and RMYR13.38 million in value of potential sales in 2020 and 2021 respectively. HDC also facilitated a total of 23 companies in SFH 2020 and improving to 32 companies SFH 2021.
“HDC’s continued participation in SFH is mainly to continue to provide market development and export facilitation to our Malaysian halal companies. This is also part of HDC’s International Cooperation strategy to implement the Hub-and-Spoke concept by considering the Republic of Korea as the hub for East Asia and its neighbouring markets,” said Hairol Ariffein.
“We need to create more opportunities for market access to potential or even untapped countries to keep on encouraging our halal exporters to penetrate any international markets. It also helps us to understand global buyers’ expectations and Malaysia exporters and products competitiveness in penetrating the global market with new norms via the virtual platform,” he added.
A total of eight Malaysian halal-certified companies are featured and showcased in the trade exhibition physically, in addition to some 104 Malaysian companies that are featured virtually within the DASH app.
“We are exposing their halal products in a total of 120 meeting sessions during the four-day event, to some 40 buyers from seven countries including Korea, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines and India. We hope to be as successful as our last program here, if not more,” added Hairol.
HDC is targeting to achieve at least MYR 20 million via pre-arranged virtual B2B meeting sessions and physical meetings between the participating Malaysian companies and international buyers at HDC’s Pavilion at SFH 2022.
