Malaysia, Thailand to jointly develop halal food products

BANGKOK, April 18 (TNA) - Malaysia and Thailand plan to jointly develop and export halal food products, as they realise that there are enough rooms for the halal food on the world market. Thai Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Kittirat Na-Ranong told reporters of the plan on Thursday, following his discussions with visiting senior executives of Malaysia’s Halal Industry Development Corporation on ways to jointly develop halal food products between the two neighbouring countries, which should lead to other forms of bilateral cooperation in the future. Kittirat suggested if halal food producers in Thailand understand the business properly, they will easily enter into other related businesses because there are a large number of Muslims living in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), including those in Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia and Thailand, noting that the halal food market in the 10-nation bloc is large and offers a good opportunity to producers. Currently, Malaysia exports halal food worth about 11 billion US dollars annually, while Thailand fetches about six billion US dollars yearly. The Malaysian side, meanwhile, found that Thailand could double exports of halal food and offered to help develop further the Thai halal food sector. (TNA)