PASIR GUDANG: Johor plans to maintain its position as the leading food producer in the country by becoming a food processing-based related activities hub in the country.
Mentri Besar Datuk Mohamed Khaled Nordin said it had been taking proactive measures focusing on expanding the agricultural sector to the next level.
He said this could be achieved by encouraging farmers and food producers to increase their productivity by adopting modern techniques and technology.
“By this, we will ensure the expansion of the downstream activities such as manufacturing and distribution of food based products,” Mohamed Khaled said on Monday.
He said this at the opening of Adeka Food (Asia) Sdn Bhd plant at the Tanjung Langsat industrial estate near here.
Mohamed Khaled said collaborative partnership between the government and the private sector coupled with having a “pro-business” policy able to provide the necessary boost for the food manufacturing sector to grow.
He said as global demand for oil palm based products continue to expand, Johor would benefit immensely due to the largest palm oil plantation (in terms of acreage) in the country.
“Johor has the right ecosystem to attract more food-based companies to set up their operations in the state including the availability of abundant raw materials,” said Mohamed Khaled.
He said the manufacturing sector remained important to Johor as the state was always ranked among the top in the country for domestic and foreign manufacturers to set up their operations.
Mohamed Khaled said statistics from the Malaysian Investment Development Authority indicated that total investment projects approved in the manufacturing sector as at the end of May 2014, has reached RM14.9bil.
He added that the figure was much higher compared with RM14.2bil for the whole of 2013 and these investments had created more than 3,000 jobs.
“Of the RM14.9bil, about RM1.6bil came from the food manufacturing industry,” said Mohamed Khaled
Source via The Star
