M’sian Firms Urged To Use Netherlands As Gateway To Europe’s Halal Market

KUALA LUMPUR, May 11 (Bernama) — Malaysian firms and
entrepreneurs have been urged to use the services of Netherlands’ Port
Rotterdam which offers some of the best facilities in the world for the
export of halal products into Europe.

Dutch Ambassador to Malaysia Lody Embrechts made this call during
the recently concluded Malaysia International Halal Showcase 2009 held
here.

Netherlands’ participation at this year’s MIHAS was through the Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency (NFIA).

For a number of years Netherlands has been working on creating a
halal supply chain between Port Klang and the Port of Rotterdam for the
export of halal products from Malaysia to Europe, he told Bernama when
met at the booth occupied by the agency and the Embassy of Netherlands
during the event.

During the event, NFIA highlighted Port of Rotterdam’s unique
selling point as a gateway to Europe and as a country with one of the
most advanced storage facilities of Halal products in the world.

Embrechts said the company was waiting for Malaysian companies to really start exporting their products to Europe.

Development has been quite slow but “we make sure that the facilities are there and keep on running and we keep communicating.

“With Port of Rotterdam here, they have the special halal
warehouse ready, so the moment the Malaysian products enter the port
they are immediately taken care of by the logistic companies, go
directly to the halal trucks to the customers or suppliers or
distributors.. whatever they want,” Embrechts explained.

Touching on the role of NFIA, Embrechts said: “Playing the key
role in promoting this vital logistics link is NFIA, an agency of the
Netherlands Ministry of Economic Affairs, set up for the special
purpose of helping and advising foreign companies that wish to take
advantage of the Dutch business environment as a strategic gateway to
Europe.’

Malaysian companies and entrepreneurs, now also have an easy
resource for connecting with businesses in the Netherlands through NFIA
Malaysian office, which was set up in late 2007, he said.

“NFIA an organisation with the overall objective to support companies investing in the Netherlands.

On Mihas, Embrechts said he was extremely surprised to see such an
overwhelming participation from exhibitors with increased participation
from the foreign countries at Mihas 2009.

“It is really crowded and it really surprised me,” he said.

MIHAS 2009, which had the participation of 29 countries ended on Sunday.