English World

Malaysian brands’ global potential

SUNNYLANDS (California): INTERNATIONAL Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed is not known to be a time-waster.

He got down to business soon after landing at the Los Angeles International Airport yesterday (Sunday in LA) after the long 16-hour flight from Kuala Lumpur (excluding the Hong Kong transit) by visiting Malaysia’s PappaRich restaurant there.

This is PappaRich’s first outlet in the United States, having opened in the second biggest US city of 3.8 million people late last year. And a second outlet is due to open its doors in New York this week.

Mustapa, or “Tok Pa”, savoured the usual PappaRich fare at the place as he held discussions with some Malaysian businessmen here whom he said were doing well in their respective fields in the US and Canada.

The point he was making was that Malaysian investments overseas and trade were on the rise and could be expanded further with the launch of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), with Malaysia as one of the 12 signatories.

Another message was that Malaysian brands could be global brands, Mustapa said, noting that PappaRich had 119 outlets, including 36 in Australia and other countries.

Another example was Malaysia’s Top Glove Corporation Bhd, the world’s biggest maker of rubber gloves, which exports 30 per cent of its products to the US and Canada.

Mustapa said US import duties on rubber gloves from Malaysia would be eliminated under TPP.

“With TPP, the American market is crucial for Malaysia especially for the three sectors — electrical and electronics, textiles and rubber products — since most of the tariffs will be abolished,” he said.

Mustapa will have a busy week ahead during this trip to California. He will be one of the two ministers accompanying Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to the special US-Asean leaders’ summit here on Monday and Tuesday, to be hosted by US President Barack Obama.

The other is Foreign Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman. In an immediate follow-up to the summit, Mustapa will join nine other Asean economic ministers (AEM) for an investment roadshow in San Francisco and the Silicon Valley, California, on Feb 17 and 18.

This is the third AEM roadshow to the US since 2010. During the two-day roadshow, Asean ministers will have meetings with the US Trade Representative, Michael Froman, to discuss trade, investment and economic cooperation between Asean and the US.

They will also visit Google and other major US companies.

US investments in Asean amounted to US$13 billion, or 10 per cent of the total foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows, in 2014.

The US was Asean’s third largest source of FDIs in 2014.

Total Asean-US trade was US$212.4 billion in 2014, or 8.4 per cent of Asean’s global trade.

About 10 per cent of Asean’s exports went to the US. On the third and final leg of his California visit, Mustapa will speak at a Malaysia-US business opportunities seminar in San Jose to promote Malaysia as a premier investment destination.

He is expected to meet Malaysian students there.

-New Straits Times

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