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Malaysia out to catch up with Thailand's exports

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Malaysia is seeking to diversify its manufacturing-heavy export sector by developing its agriculture and fishery industries, its trade commissioner said yesterday.

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Last year, the nation's exports to Hong Kong totalled 32.5 billion ringgit (HK$83.1 billion) - up 12.82per cent from 2009, Malaysia's trade department figures show.

Manufactured goods accounted for 95.6 per cent of the country's exports to Hong Kong last year, worth 31.1 billion ringgit. The value of exported manufactured goods to Hong Kong reached 27.9 billion ringgit in 2009 - 95.8 per cent of the total exports to Hong Kong.

However, Edison Choong Wan-sern, trade commissioner of the Consulate General of Malaysia in Hong Kong, said the Malaysian government was hoping to catch up with its neighbour, Thailand, in the export of agricultural goods - particularly tropical fruits and seafood.

Agricultural goods formed only 1.2 per cent of total exports from Malaysia to Hong Kong last year, worth a total of 400 million ringgit.

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By comparison, statistics from the Census and Statistics Department of Hong Kong showed that the city imported HK$6.2 billion worth of foodstuffs from Thailand. This accounted for 7.9 per cent of all the exports from Thailand to Hong Kong, which were worth a total of HK$76.3 billion last year; Hong Kong imported foodstuffs worth HK$1.7billion from Malaysia in the same year.

Choong said the agribusiness in Malaysia was still dominated by state-owned enterprises and individual players, but the trade ministry was seeking co-operation with both domestic and foreign corporations in expanding the business scale.

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