Events

The Branding Association of Malaysia and MATRADE jointly organised the Trade Mission to the Philippines from 24th to 28th April 2019 aimed at informing the members of Branding Association of the advantages and opportunities in setting up their manufacturing, trading, assembly and services facilities in the Philippines.  There were a total of 20 members from 14 companies in the delegation, representing a wide range of industries such as education, F&B, technology, media, manufacturing, beauty, health & medical, forklift parts and recreational facilities.

The common objectives had by Malaysian delegates during this mission were exploring new business opportunities and better understanding of regulatory requirements in markets. In total, there were 2 business matchings, 4 business meetings and 1 MOU signing held during this trade mission.

Vice President Malaysia Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines (MCCI), Mr Eric Yam’s briefing session on Marketing & Branding Landscape in the Philippines had created a greater understanding and knowledge among the Malaysian delegates. He summarised that the Malaysian businesses keen to do business in that country to handle all procedures personally as far as possible. Although Philippines is not a country generally perceived as one which is easy to do business with, Philippines had taken proactive steps to improve its business environment. With existing cyber parks and several IT companies nationwide, the Philippines has not only remained as the leading e-services hub of Asia but also a major outsourcing services provider for American, European, and Japanese firms.  The country continues to enhance its reputation as a global call centre and emerging associated high value processes such as software and applications development, game and creative content development, big data and business analytics.  Furthermore, the Philippines has a reliable and redundant ICT infrastructure and an overall competitive incentive scheme.

It was a privilege for Malaysian delegates to have the Undersecretary of the Department of Trade (the equivalence of our Deputy Minister of MITI) H.E. Abdulgani Macatoman as special guest at the private networking dinner hosted by Branding Association in Manila. He said that the Philippine door is wide open for Malaysian entrepreneurs to enter the 100million population market, and the best timing is now - as the Philippines has become one of the fastest growing economies in ASEAN, registering an impressive 6.5% average growth over the last few years. During the same evening, a Malaysian company who is also the member of Branding Association, IX Telecom Sdn Bhd and PLDT Enterprise have signed a MOU witnessed by Undersecretary H.E. Abdulgani Macatoman of DTI, Mr Rizany Irwan, Charge d’Affairs of Malaysian Embassy, Datuk Eric Chong, President of Branding Association and Puan Siti Azlina Mohd Ali Hanafiah, Trade Commissioner of MATRADE.