KUALA LUMPUR: Yemen-based Thabet Group has set its sight on making Malaysia a distribution hub for its dairy products through subsidiary Pan Asian Dairies Sdn Bhd.
The group plans to export to Southeast Asian region and Middle East from Malaysia.
Gameel Thabet, one of the directors and third-generation successors of the founding Thabet family, said the group aims to capitalise on Malaysia which has developed itself as a "well-seen brand" in the world.
"We want to use Malaysia as a hub to export to Southeast Asia as well as Middle East. Malaysian products are quite well seen in the world. We want to capitalise on that," he said in an interview recently.
"Sixty per cent of our products will be for the domestic market and the other 40 per cent will be for export," he added.
Thabet Group is one of the largest business conglomerates in Yemen and stands as one of the top three dairy manufacturers in the Middle East.
Established in 1925, the group brings over 90 years of collective experience across various sectors, including dairy production and manufacturing as one of their core activities.
With its flagship Yemany dairy brand, the group successfully established itself in the market and industry for 40 years to date.
Due to the current political and civil unrest in their home country, the group decided to expand their business beyond the Middle East.
Gameel said the plant, located in Seremban, is Thabet Group's first outside Yemen.
"We had looked at a few countries in Southeast Asia but we decided that we do our project first in Malaysia.
"We had look into investing in Indonesia but there were more barriers to invest in the country, particularly with the language. In Malaysia generally English is widely spoken. That was one of the reasons. Also, the law is well set up. The investment environment is business friendly," he added.
Gameel said Pan Asian Diaries would start its first production for the Malaysian market as well as export early next year.
The testing and commissioning of its production plant that has a capacity of 200,000 liters a day was expected to be completed in December, he added.