MSM Malaysia joins Asean Sugar Alliance, boosts goal to export more

KUALA LUMPUR: MSM Malaysia Holdings Bhd (MSM) is now part of the industry initiative Asean Sugar Alliance (ASA) via a memorandum of understanding (MoU) effective on June 20, 2023.

Other members in the alliance include sugar industry refiners from Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

MSM Group chief executive Officer Syed Feizal Syed Mohammad said as the country's first sugar manufacturer and one of the largest standalone sugar refiners in Asia in terms of capacity, the company has built a solid foundation amplified by value-added downstream and regional market growth throughout the food-related value chain.

"Being part of this alliance demonstrates that MSM continues to expand its business model progressively in line with its vision to be a world class and cost-efficient organisation driven by sustainability.

"It will further support MSM's vision to grow its export footprint further from the present six per cent to 12-15 per cent market share in the near to medium term in the regional market," he said in a statement. 

MSM plans to further expand its export market from the present 17 countries in Asia Pacific, Bangladesh and Pakistan to extend new outreach to hyper growth continents such as Africa.

"MSM is also actively looking to expand its presence in the global sugar business via strategic acquisition of assets and interests in other countries as part of its long-term business expansion initiative.

"Being an ASA industry member will provide better global market information access and intelligence moving forward," he added.

Recently, MSM Sugar Refinery (Johor) Sdn Bhd (MSM Johor) completed its technical turnaround programme which will boost the production utilisation factor (UF) with full reliability and availability to refine at its effective design production capacity of one million tonnes per annum.

The company noted that MSM Johor has geo-strategic advantage to tap into the growing export market of over four million tonnes per year in Asia Pacific region.

"MSM's participation in ASA will enable it to establish a closer and stronger relationship with its peers in the sugar industry within Asean in which to promote and facilitate sugar trade, production and business cooperation.

"The members can further collaborate in information exchange and technical cooperation as well as research and development on sugarcane, sugar and related products for the benefit of the over 650 million population in Asean," Syed Feizal added.

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