MIDA, HDC inks MoU to boost Malaysia’s halal industry
04 Oct 2022
The Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Halal Development Corp Bhd (HDC) to boost Malaysia’s halal industry.
This strategic collaboration will allow HDC to leverage the end-to-end facilitation by MIDA to assist further and enhance the industry’s capability and capacity, propelling the country’s economic growth.
MIDA chief executive officer Datuk Wira Arham Abdul Rahman said the MoU further strengthens the successful partnership between MIDA and HDC and enhances Malaysia’s position as the centre of halal ecosystem development.
Arham said this collaboration also foresees the broader scope of economic cooperation between the MIDA and HDC and provides opportunities in new and innovative business and strategic areas that will include projects to increase investment.
“Given the growing role of technology and the increasing importance of its adoption, especially since the global pandemic struck, it is apt to prioritise technology development now and post Covid-19.
“This would also be beneficial to enhance innovation and technology application in the Halal industry that Malaysia already has succeeded,” he said.
Meanwhile, HDC chief executive officer Hairol Ariffein Sahari said that Malaysia’s halal parks had attracted a total of RM16.28 billion in investments since 2011.
Hairol said HDC is seeing a trend amongst the local players, particularly the halal small and medium enterprises (SMEs), who were resilient throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Despite the challenges, they have strived and are still going for business expansion and diversification to meet the growing demand.
“Hence, these SMEs are scaling up and looking for suitable and sizable industrial spaces with better infrastructure and ecosystem support, provided by HDC’s halal parks,” he said.
The collaboration will synchronise the process flow of investment facilitation during pre and post-investments between HDC and MIDA.
For 2021, HDC managed to engage 130 domestic companies with 17 letters of intent (LoI) issued into Malaysian halal parks with a potential investment of RM133 million.
It is believed that 60 per cent of the potential investment will be realised with this two-year partnership.
The MoU with HDC demonstrates MIDA’s ongoing commitment to pursuing high technology, high value-added and innovative investment projects from domestic and foreign companies.
The partnership is seen as timely to provide adequate financial support to industry players.
This is mainly for domestic investors in expanding the government’s efforts to facilitate investments in Malaysia, which is consistent with the National Investment Aspirations (NIA) framework in driving economic growth.
Source: NST
