Malaysian Halal Food Expo in Dubai is intended to be annual

The Expo, which is intended to be annual, lasts up to April 13th, 2005 having products of 65 small and medium-size enterprises specialized in foodstuff.

Mr. Mutaiwee assured that this initiative will certainly boost the trade relations between Dubai and Malaysia and create new venues of networking between the business communities in both countries which help promoting the Halal foods in UAE and neighboring countries.

"During the last years we have been noticing the significant increase of the volume of non-oil foreign trade between Dubai and Malaysia, and this Expo will enhance the bilateral trade relations to higher levels", he said.

"Our imports of meat and prepared foodstuff value US$ 1.5 billion which represent 50 percent of Dubai total foodstuff imports. This should encourage Malaysian exporters to increase their efforts to take a bigger slice of Dubai expanding foodstuff markets", he added.

Mr. Mutaiwee emphasized that organizing HALAL Food Expo in Dubai is a successful and practical step towards fostering and strengthening the position of the Malaysian food manufacturing and exporting companies in Dubai.

"We encourage our brothers from Malaysia to continue organizing such important events and increase the number of visiting trade delegations and missions", he mentioned.

The HALAL Food Expo is organized by Malay Chamber of Commerce Malaysia (under the portfolio of agriculture and agro-based industry), supported by Malaysian External Trade Development Corporation (Matrade).

Mr. Alattas stressed that this Expo will help maintain more friendly relations with the brothers in UAE and neighboring countries. He explained how the Malaysian people and the government are keen on promoting the Halal foods, saying that the Malay citizen must be Muslim -by the constitution.

Mr. Shamsuddin, the Malaysian Consul-General said that UAE is Malaysia's biggest trading partner in the Middle East. "The bilateral trade between Dubai and Malaysia has increased substantially over the past years. For the last 10 years, the total trade has increased by 260 %, from US$ 552 million in 1994 to US$ 1989 million in 2004. Malaysia exports to the UAE also increased from US$ 1113 million in 2003 to US$ 1.553 million in 2004", he stated.

He added that Malaysia's major export items to UAE are Jewellery, TV receivers, radio broadcast receivers, vegetable fats & oil, automatic data processing equipment and furniture.

"Malaysia looks at the UAE as a major re-export centre for the region. To take advantage of the important trading role of Dubai, Malaysia has established the Malaysia Trade Centre (MTC), which was officially opened on 19 May 2001. The main objective for setting up the MTC is to showcase Malaysian products and services available for export to the UAE and the Gulf markets. MTC serves as the venue for regular trade events involving Malaysian products and also as a focal business people to obtain useful trade and investment information on Malaysia.

"MTC just recently went through a complete renovation to showcase latest range of quality products from various Small and Medium- sized enterprises in Malaysia. Halal Food Expo is the first exhibition since the renovation. We welcome the initiative from the Malay Chamber of commerce to bring in range of available products from Malaysia for showcase to UAE traders and businessmen", he added.

Mr. Maidin emphasized on the continuous substantial increase in the bilateral trade between Malaysia and UAE. "UAE is Malaysia's biggest trade partner in West Asia. UAE is Malaysia's 17th largest export market with total exports amounting to US$ 859.1 million, representing 0.9% of Malaysia's global exports", he said.

He pointed out that the importance of UAE, particularly Dubai, can be seen by the continuous flow and exchange of trade missions. "We recently had UAE-Malaysia Business forum. The delegation from UAE, led by Sheikha Lubna Al Qassimi, Minister of Economic and Planning, conducted successful talks on a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the two countries.