News From : DagangHalal.com (12 May 2009)
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.
— BERNAMA