THURSDAY, 14 DECEMBER 2017, KUALA LUMPUR: Menara MATRADE was abuzz with the attendance of over 300 Malaysian companies who came to gather insights on exporting to China. The forum, focusing on CASTPP Platform, was jointly organised by Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation (MATRADE), China Guangxi Qinzhou Free Trade Port Administration Area (QGFTPA) and ICBC (Malaysia).

The Business Forum highlighted the benefits and opportunities offered by the CASTPP, Belt & Road Initiative and Trade Financing as well as market knowledge on China. The forum was graced by YB Datuk Chua Tee Yong, Deputy Minister of International Trade and Industry (Trade), Ir. Dr Mohd Shahreen Zainooreen Madros, Chief Executive Officer of MATRADE, Madam Shi Ziming, Economic and Commercial Counsellor of the Chinese Embassy in Malaysia and Mr. Wang Qiang, CEO of ICBC (Malaysia) Berhad.

Apart from the forum, a product sourcing session was arranged for 20 buyers from China with 25 Malaysian suppliers from food industry.

CASTPP is a platform jointly initiated by Guangxi Qinzhou Free Trade Port Area and Guangxi China-ASEAN Panorama Magazine Agency, that was launched by YB Datuk Chua Tee Yong, Deputy Minister of the Minister of International Trade and Industry (Trade), in December 2016 at MATRADE. The inception of CASTPP was supported by MATRADE as one of the initiatives to drive exports to China.

CASTPP provides online and offline platform to facilitate Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) exports venture to China. The platform offers a one-stop solution for customs clearance for SMEs when exporting to China. To date, five Malaysian companies have successfully exported products valued at RM1 million through the CASTPP platform.

Malaysia’s trade with China in January-October 2017 expanded by 24.1% to RM237.96 billion compared with the same period in 2016. Exports to China surged by 33.5% to RM103.32 billion, due to higher exports of Electrical & Electronics products, petroleum products, LNG, chemicals and chemical products as well as rubber products. Imports from China increased by 17.8% to RM134.64 billion.

MATRADE as Malaysia’s export promotion agency offers various facilitation for Malaysian companies in areas such as market intelligence and trade advisory as well as export promotion and capacity building programmes. The agency, under Ministry of International Trade and Industry, has 46 trade offices around the world of which four are in China - Beijing (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), Guangzhou (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), Shanghai
(This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), Chengdu (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) and Hong Kong
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