S’wak among states yet to explore S’pore market via Agrobazaar
SINGAPORE: Four states — Sabah, Sarawak, Perlis and Selangor — have yet to market their agro-based food products through Agrobazaar Malaysia in Singapore.
Agrobazaar Malaysia General Manager Noor Hisham said Agrobazaar Malaysia was ready to become a platform for them to promote and market their agrobased food products.
“They should take this opportunity to enter the Singapore market due to the overwhelming response,” he said at the Malaysia Halal Centre, a sales and promotion platform for Malaysian products in the Big Box Hypermarket here Saturday.
He said the Malaysia Halal Centre occupies about 4,000 square feet of floor area in the Big Box Hypermarket to market Malaysian products.
“It is the largest area compared with that of products from other countries such as Japan, Korea and China at the Big Box,” he said.
With additional sales platforms such as the Malaysia Halal Centre, he said Agrobaazar Malaysia aims to increase sales by 30 per cent this year with 800 stock keeping units (SKUs).
He said since Agrobazaar Malaysia started operations in the republic in August 2014, it has recorded a yearly sales of RM4.5 million on average, starting with 100 SKUs and now reaching 600 SKUs.
An entity owned by the Federal Agricultural Marketing Authority Authority ( FAMA), Agrobazaar Malaysia acts as a sales and promotion centre in Singapore for agro- based industrial products from all Malaysian states.
In 2016 alone, Agrobazaar Malaysia become a marketplace for agro- based products from several states like Melaka and Terengganu.
Meanwhile, FAMA deputy director of Operations Datuk Sharifah Hashim said the agency had added three new sales platforms, to bring the total to five, to showcase the products of Malaysian entrepreneurs in the Lion City. She said the three new platforms were the Global Halal Hub, the Mustafa Centre and the Cold Storage, which had been operating in stages since September last year.
“Through this continuous effort, we strive to spread our wings to widen the market for our products in Singapore and globally,” he said.
FAMA opened Agrobazaar Malaysia in Jalan Sultan Gate as a distribution centre in 2014 and the Malaysia in Halal Centre in the Big Box Hypermarket in April last year. Sharifah said the export value of Malaysian agrofood products in Singapore was about RM5 billion in 2015 and that amount was expected to increase. — Bernama.