Korean firm ties up with Tech Park’s Biotech

BOOST TO MALAYSIAN HERBAL INDUSTRY

KUALA LUMPUR, (Nov 8, 2011): Korean research group AT Lab Co. Ltd. is looking towards Malaysian herbs to boost their supply of ingredients for the manufacture of high-end cosmetics and they are banking on Technology Park’s wholly owned subsidiary TPM Bio Tech (TPMB) to see this through.

ATL’s business development manager for its Malaysian subsidiary ATL Cosmetics Sdn Bhd Kong Chia-hing said that with the collaboration, AT Lab’s capability to produce ingredients based on comprehensive studies on compounds discovered in selected herbs to establish in vitro studies for anti microbial, anti aging, anti inflammatory, moisturising and whitening as practical applications in skincare.

Kong: Korean cosmetics’ industry

making waves internationally.

Kong said that AT Lab had already set its eyes on six herbs kacip fatimah, pegaga and tongkat ali and mas cotek, pulai and pokok kapal terbang to name a few so far which he believed had the potency to fulfill the needs to provide the right enhancement for skin care cosmetics, These herbs he said, allowed for faster absorption and better end results.

Kong was speaking after inking an agreement with TPM Biotech Sdn Bhd (TPMB), a wholly owned subsidiary of Technology Park Malaysia Corporation Sdn Bhd.
The agreement with AT Lab forms a strategic collaboration for the development of the herbal and botanical based cosmetic ingredients in Malaysia.

AT Lab, according to Kong, currently supplied ingredients to leading cosmetic brands and heading the list as their biggest buyer as Amora which in turns owned 20 other cosmetic brands placed in both mid to high end range.

Both companies have also mutually agreed to ensure alliance of the technical knowledge and technology transfer through the training of researchers in all aspects of product testing and analysis. This also includes the technical know-how and manufacturing processes which are not only limited to research.

The collaboration agreement which was officially endorsed at Technology Park today was represented by Technology Park Malaysia’s president and chief executive officer, Dato’ Hj. Mohd. Azman Hj. Shahidin and AT Lab Co. Ltd. by its Chief Technology Officer, Mr Kim Kwang Soo, the managing director of ATL Cosmetics Sdn Bhd and TPMB’s senior manager Fadzhairi Abd Jabar,

Under this smart partnership, both parties have agreed to discuss comprehensively on compounds discovered in selected herbal products and to establish in vitro studies for anti microbial, anti aging, anti inflammatory, moisturising and whitening as possible practical applications in skincare.

Dato’ Azman described the collaboration as a major step forward in exploiting the vast business opportunities and potential of the Malaysian herbal industry which is estimated to contribute more than RM0.7 billion annually to the country’s economy to RM29 billion by 2020.

“Currently, the multi-billion ringgit local herbal industry is experiencing an annual growth of more than 20 per cent.

“Our intention is to basically go on the discovery, research and development of Malaysian herbal based products based on the Malaysian biodiversity. Six samples have been so far identified which have active compounds that are able to be used in the cosmetics which have the anti-ageing and inflammatory properties To co-research together with AT Lab, bring in the technology and jointly commercialise the production and processing of the ingredients and make Malaysia the base for the production of processed ingredients.

“Despite its continuing upward trend growth, the industry has yet to be fully tapped by local entrepreneurs. At Technology Park, we have the latest technology and facilities to assist local manufacturers to explore and enhance their business potential,” Azman said.

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ABOUT TECHNOLOGY PARK BIOTECH : TPMB provides analytical laboratory analyses and services in addressing critical issues in food and other products or consumer goods relating to quality, safety and authenticity of the products. Its analyses include detection of porcine specific DNA sequence, detection of alcohol and safety limit test for heavy metals and microbes, in which are important in verifying the Halal and Toyyiban status of a product. TPMB is a Bionexus status company and an ISO9001:2008 certified company with GMP and HACCP certified manufacturing facilities. Its Analytical/Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Laboratories meet the requirements of the ISO/IEC 17025:2008 accreditation for chemical and nucleic acid tests. TPMB is a wholly owned subsidiary of Technology Park Malaysia Corporation Sdn Bhd, a Ministry of Finance Incorporated company, whose missions and objectives are essentially to provide world class services and infrastructure to the development of outstanding technology and innovative enterprises.

Collaboration finalised: Dato Azman (second from left) exchanging documents with Christine Oh Ji-young. With them are Kong (far left ) and Fadzhairi (far right) .

Dato Azman : Malaysian herbal industry can contribute RM 0.7 billion annually.

Kong: Korean cosmetics’ industry making waves internationally.
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PROXCEL IN BID TO SPRUCE UP ICT ECOSYSTEM

KUALA LUMPUR; ( August 22) THE changing landscape of the Malaysian information and communications technology (ICT) sector spells an overwhelming metamorphosis which has not only complicated the application of technologies as a whole but it may just become one of the sectors where “leakages” of dramatic proportions take place each time a procurement is undertaken.
This procurement be it one made by the largest purchaser which is the government or the heavies in the private sector would make more business sense if a critical perspective was taken on this changing ICT ecosystem. This eco-system has become quite diverse in nature and highly competitive indeed.
Fact is there are loads of capable and innovative ICT players out there in the market place.
The question is this. Have they succeeded in demonstrating whether ICT and the technology that surrounds and supports this changing ecosystem project a real core value driver for all businesses?
Let’s take a look at the perception first and whether it is a departure from the truth, which in most cases, is the case.
The ICT and its technologies are necessary. This is an unavoidable fact. It is also an unavoidable cost. This cost would have to be carried by any company or organisation or better still the government if they want to remain competitive.
Can we change this? Why can’t we instead create a measurable value for businesses and the public sector?
Why can’t ICT exponents contribute more towards ensuring that there is sustainability on what they provide and not just look out for short term gains?
Isn’t it better to approach customer engagement from this perspective?
Can’t there be a kind of philosophy, noble as it sounds, which commands that the ICT players be more vendor agnostic.
If such a philosophy exists, it would in many ways allow the ICT players to be more business and outcome focused.
ICT players have to be competency-driven and drive value and thereby changing spending habits.
Short term pragmatists in the form, shape and size of ICT providers are not competency-active in their role of participation. It still remains that ICT and technology remain the core value drivers for all businesses.
Emerging as a business consultant who is an ICT enabler is ProXcel Sdn Bhd – a company formed from a joint venture between Felda Global and the iA Group.
The company is a fusion of the private sector’s thought-leadership and international experience harnessing from iA’s experience and expertise and the public sector’s scale and financial strength via Felda Global.
By this proportion, ProXcel can now position itself as an inclusive and collaborative partner which can fit in the shoes of such a company which focuses on consulting and technology-enabled services and playing a role as a business consultant who can in more ways than one orchestrate how things ought to be done in real ICT applications vis-à-vis the spending culture surrounding this sector.
“Let’s not spend for the sake of spending and let’s not grab a project and deliver just tangibles and at the end of the day say that we have contributed towards enhancing the ICT ecosystem,” says a ProXcel senior management personnel.
“In Malaysia, there is a strong project culture where product vendors are continuously proposing solutions from a single-minded perspective in making decisions.
“The decision-making processes of the government undoubtedly make an impact on the ICT providers and there is very little top down overall enterprise structure in place.
“Therefore, there is always the risk where the solution stands alone and it does not get anywhere nor does it create the value that was originally anticipated”
These were among the challenges which ProXcel planned to take up in its overall business approach and agenda.
A real ICT player especially those who hawk market-driven smart solutions, portals and platforms and customer oriented functionality, must be allowed to use their service integration capabilities to create a synergy between local and overseas partners.
Such a synergy, must deliver seamless and best-in-class services to the client.
“We do agree that a transformation in technology is extremely important and we do recognise that one shareholder brings with them a private perspective, the knowledge and background which can be utilised for Felda’s internal requirements, said the company eexecutive when explaining ProXcel’s role and collaboration with an organisation as large as Felda.
Financial strength aside, it was felt that if ProXcel was to take large transformational projects, it would also need a healthy balance sheet.
Taking a critical look at what Felda hoped to achieve by tying up with ProXcel, it was also felt that for internal requirements, it helped to get the support on the transformational track but ultimately ProXcel has to be able to focus on its core business.
But ProXcel is more than just an ICT solutions provider. They are out to determine value by making sure the business is receiving value and therefore it is about the technology.
ProXcel is planning to go out “to provide sustainable services which create value, you should understand the customer first which many people describe this as consulting and it is what we do.”
This kind of consulting within the ICT framework of products and services actually leads to an execution which is very practical indeed and necessary to get the services needed.
Today, there is a gap and a void in this approach of consultancy and ProXcel is looking to fill in the gap between the business and technology society with the company having identified that there is a niche for the company to enable a type of service that creates that sustainable value.
Being an ICT enabler with a strong business sense, ProXcel is able to put forward a service delivery excellence via long term arrangements to deliver services in a consistent quality against the key performance index (KPI) of a business or government department or ministry.
“It is not about delivering a project XYZ, it is about delivering the business value over a period of time where ProXcel has people on board to focus on this field,” says the spokesman.
“As far as the local ICT market is concerned, the government is the biggest spender in ICT.
“Fact is ProXcel is capable of reducing the expenditure by looking at the overall picture and we believe from a transformational perspective, ProXcel is able to help reduce the cost of the government.”
A real ICT player especially those who hawk market-driven smart solutions, portals and platforms and customer-oriented functionality, must be allowed to use their service integration capabilities to create a synergy between local and overseas partners.
Such a synergy, must also deliver seamless and best-in-class services to the client.
How many of such ICT players are really committed to operational excellence in sincerely wanting to provide customers with a guaranteed quality and a price over the total duration of their service agreement?
There are many Malaysian-borne ICT players whose capabilities are at par with international ICT solutions providers.
Most of them are an attractive addition to Malaysia’s ICT landscape albeit competitive for the wrong reasons.
For the government which is highly driven by the need to “smart-up” their functionality it does no harm to be more stringent and cost-effective at the operating expenditure levels rather than dishing out “projects” and inflating capital expenditure.
These are challenging times and an ICT integrator who can lay the role of a business consultant with an ICT enabling ability can help organisations to not only transform but grow and sustain themselves.
To the systems and solutions integrators, they should instead also try and become a company focused on consulting and providing technology-enabled services.
Large enterprises and the government in particular, have to streamline its ICT capabilities by rationalising and consolidating its applications so that there is minimal leakage of unused capability in an organisation’s networks and no duplication of ICT capabilities with the systems and solutions ecosystem already created.
ICT players have to be an instrument to transform business and create value through business enabling technology.
They must deliver the best in class end-to-end services and must position themselves to be a strategic partner to the public sector and the industry as a whole by stimulating growth areas through the innovation and technology they offer and provide the best.
The Malaysian Government for one should sit up and take notice on the real ICT players who can contribute immensely are not be taken advantage of by ICT players who desperately want a piece of the action.
This can be done without having to spend over and above what has already been spent in their capital expenditure.
ProXcel’s expertise is being able to fast-forward value-creation which comes about after consolidating a work environment and the company is bent on wanting to be a key leader in providing technology services.
“It’s all about being rational, real and relevant and ProXcel as a business consultant has set its eyes on consolidating and transforming ICT players in Malaysia by being inclusive in their approach,” says the spokesman.
This challenge will see ProXcel developing technologies further and providing an ICT services’ portfolio in totality in order to keep within their mainstay in driving value and to educate the market place on how to change spending habits in ICT.
It’s not like they are pitching to come and install some configuration based on a half-cooked spec from a project drawn down from an EPP (entry-point project) of the government’s economic transformation programme (ETP) of some sort.
ProXcel comes away clean and transparent in wanting to contribute towards creating a real effective and leakage-free ICT ecosystem which the taxpayers can be proud of. The government or Pemandu at best should hear them out.
ProXcel is a joint venture between Felda Global and the iA Group set up in 2010. The company is a business consultant specialising in IT solutions. Proxcel wants to position itself as a bridge in technology services to help business, organisations and large corporate bodies enhance their ability to consolidate their work environment.
Ends.

NCER - REGIONAL ENABLER

By Siva Kumar G

‘At 30,000 feet nothing moves but we are on the ground.’ This is how the number main the captain’s seat of the Northern Corridor perceives action rather high-flying talk.’
- Datuk Redza Rafiq Abdul Razak
CEO of Northern Corridor Implementation Authority

Datuk Redza Rafiq Abdul Razak, the Chief Executive Officer of North Corridor Implementation Authority (NCIA) is no dreamer but a hard core realist with radical approaches to kick start and promote economic propulsion in a manner where the benefits are realised and enjoyed by those in his catchment area – Penang, Perak, Kedah and Perlis.
Malaysian Corridor had the opportunity to sit down with Redza and hear things from his point of view in a point blank manner. Redza was quick to use catch words like “regional enabler” and highlighted the “change in the approach” adopted by NCER.
In 2008 and 2009 Redza says the total figure given was RM1.48 billion. In 2010, he changed NCIA’s approach as previously they were doing infrastructure work and getting involved in the construction of roads, drains, bridges and so on.
“That’s not our job. That’s the job of the JKR and JPS. It only created complications. Our task now is how do we catalyse private sector participation and ensure that the private sector can thrive and prosper in this economic corridor and how we can manage the spillovers and that is to ensure optimal benefits?”
Redza prefers not to take the approach of being big planners. “We base our work on the reality on the ground for example the Sungai Kerang project and have started export in to Dubai and Saudi Arabia. These are on-going. Even for the bee hive venture, their factory will be ready in July. And as a regional implementation authority, we don’t get involved in say 30 acres in Bukit Dumbar for example. This is why you see our aquaculture which is so big.”
This is what Redza and NCIA are all about. The NCER has chalked up RM 9.3 billion through the total private sector participation alone over the past 16 months with RM3.3 billion bagged in the first four months of this year alone. Such is the record set by the NCER under the stewardship of its Redza. Since its inception, the NCIA has created nearly eight thousand work positions and led by the NCIA, private sector participation has outreached RM6 billion of which only 8.99 percent of it had constituted governmental input.

ACHIEVING THE OUTREACH

He centres his ideas on how best to optimise the economic benefits from these high value activities. If Redza pursues a portfolio approach to economic development he feels there will always be low hanging fruits which are of high yield. In the case of the Northern Corridor, Redza feels that a typical example of that is E&E sector (electrical and electronic) which can continue to achieve high economic status and attain the goals set in the New Economic Model.
“But we cannot use this as a portfolio approach to achieve economic development at the expense of other things because our agricultural sector provides the biggest outreach.
“On the one hand we have the biggest multiplier (E&E) sector and on the other hand the biggest outreach (agriculture).
Citing the Flora Bee Hive Enterprise, Redza find it’s a simple process in which the company promotes the use of bio-technology to get the bees to produce royal jelly.
“Royal jelly which is a higher end product (a small bottle can fetch up to RM100 plus and they are all mainly for export globally) when compared to honey is a product of a scientific process but the actual bee farming is just bee farming plain and simple where they don’t produce hone but royal jelly.
“If the ‘so what’ of this comes about, we are actually able to create business opportunities and from there we manage the spillovers and the downstream activities like the manufacturing of the boxes for the bees.
“The people at Flora Bee Hive do not sell a system like many other ventures like worms, leeches and so on. Their approach is that if you can find someone who can produce the boxes more economically than us, please go ahead. All they want is the royal jelly and this creates a lot of spillovers.”
Being quite passionate about how each venture provides the much felt outreach, Redza was quick to distance himself from infrastructure projects citing their one and only Penang Sentral project which is under construction is Penang Sentral The rest of their activities does not involve construction.
How the NCIA ensures local participation is that they engage with the local leaders who will them provide the funnel in terms of the candidates “because they are the ones who know the best.’
“We want best outcome based on the ground results and they (the leaders) have the best on-the-ground experience. This was successfully done in Tasek Glugor and Kamunting.
“We didn’t know the participants but the local leaders help us in managing the funnel.”
Confining his illustration and approach to the context of the bee hive farmers, the question of how NCIA prepares the participants came about.
“We give them training and the funding. It is not funded nor is it guaranteed by the government. It is done by the private sector and NCIA job is to catalyse the private sector to enable them to function that way. We don’t get involved with taxation and all that but we go one level down and these people get the loans and if they can’t repay the loan, the company will take back the businesses to repay the loans”
The motivation factor in doing this is the carrot at the end of the stick. With just two hours of work each day, a bee farmer can earn RM800 per month. So this can get bigger and bigger with greater involvement by the bee farmers.
The best part of this outreach programme is the anchor company (Flora Bee Hive) which buys the royal jelly produced by the farmers. This is opposed to having a retailer at the other end and the problem of branding, labeling and packaging will set in complicating matters. The anchor company serves as an industrial provider.
Reza encased local investment in the Northern Corridor to be 50.6 per cent of the 6 billion investments and the remaining being foreign and the bulk of the investment comes from the manufacturing sector. The Led player for example contributed 2.1 billion.
“That is why you cannot take the portfolio approach when reflecting on investment against companies and so on. You have to look at the yield factors and the outreach because whatever economic benefits that you want to get out of this, have to appeal to the masses who must be able to reap the benefits from such economic endeavours. This will answer the critics who would be tempted to ask ‘so what?’
“The two examples alone reflect RM2.6 billion and this is only two. The half a billion comes from Singapore-based aerospace company Aviatron.”
The NCIA, Redza says, works very hard at this especially in getting what is just below the surface which is RM40 million worth of contracts being farmed out to companies by a company like Aviatron but somehow this doesn’t get picked up. These are the real spillovers, says Redza.
What attracted Aviatron to the Northern Corridor is a 40-year evolution in manufacturing which started from the semi-conductor industry which provided a fixed set of baseline skills. These base line skills are important as the culture of delivering precision products and services was found in this region especially in Penang.
This had since become quite attractive to the companies and NCIA ‘s challenge was not so much in attracting them but the track record which the region has and these companies could literally come and see for themselves what is being done.
“It’s more show of capability to the NCIA. Redza feels that the challenge was more on how to carve out the RM40 million in spin-offs. It is different from Redza’s previous involvement in Cyberjaya which he described as a green field. Penang, he said, is a brown field and this remains NCIA’s strong selling points towards being able to deliver precision products for the past 40 years.
Redza does not deny that there had been failures in the past. He cited an example of a case of having two manufacturing lines which are super efficient.

CENTRES OF EXCELLENCE

“When they put in three of four lines, they can’t do it. What changed them from being super where the yield was 99.97 percent. The investors were impressed and went for five lines but the yield dropped to 95 per cent. Why does this happen. “
To cope with this problem NCIA has centres of excellence (COEs). Redza feels that some local companies do not have a structural discipline.
“They have the capabilities but do not have the structural discipline and this where the centres of excellence (COEs) will help them foster the spirit of COEs to move in tandem with the engagement.
“What helps us is that the work culture is already there to attract like-minded individuals and similar companies to help them get back on track.”
Redza says that the 40 years of evolution has created a culture of business found to most palatable to these companies especially with a history of delivering precision products for the past 40 years.
“They have all these segments of the supply chain that are done by the companies and with RM40 up for grabs this is not a bad thing. This serves to only strengthen and augment the state of being in the aerospace ecosystem in the Northern Corridor.”
This is something different, he quips.
Perhaps this is why things are done differently in the north with Redza at the wheels. He is very much down-to-earth.
“We are not the ones to announce big multi-million ringgit buildings to be built and so on.”
Redza was also quickly to divert the attention to another area of concern which is human capital development in trying to keep pace with economic development.
Penang hospitals for example, he says are choosy.
“The growth in the health industry sector is huge and is creating job opportunities for nurses and doctors so much so that the private institutions of higher learning are under pressure to revise the syllabus and increase their standards of qualification and meet the stringent guidelines set by the hospitals. These institutions of learning have to meet the stringent criteria set by the hospitals.”
The NCIA has also touched the hearts of paddy farmers with a scheme that became a sigh of relief and assign of higher yields in their crops.
This was the case in the area of fertiliser storage (setor baja) with their trays and the transplanters. NCIA designed this to get rid of the problem of empty husk paddy (padi angin).
Redza came to realise that the empty husked padi was being discarded and with the proper storage and dissemination of fertlilisers the farmers enjoyed a 10 per cent increase in their yield.
Directly or indirectly a simple move of efficiency benefitted 20,818 farmers because they could now access their fertilisers from a safe place and use it and use it when and where they want it without the fear of it getting wet or stolen as was the case in the past where they had to rush to use it which at one time resulted in poor quality paddy with a high incidence of empty husk
With the new storage scheme, the farmers recorded a 10.1 per cent increase in their income because of such a facility thought out by the NCIA.
Touching on tourism, Redza cited three main areas being eco-tourism, heritage and cultural tourism and the niche market tourism such as healthcare travel.
Redza hinted at Langkawi and Belum as tourism products being re-positioned somewhat and this plan is still in its concept stage.
“We just finished the first round of the Langkawi lab in which we are looking at how we are going to re-position. Why we didn’t report on this is that it sounds like we are going to re-position but looking to reposition are not repositioning yet. This is also the case for the Belum tropical rainforest and a study is still being carried out.
On cultural heritage tourism Redza was equally passionate about historical and traditional folklore that got lost as Langkawi developed into a tourist haven. This has never been propagated well and the story remains untold, say Redza who feels strongly that there are many tales of Langkawi which are priceless and can be marketed to tourists.
Redza has put on his thinking cap with this bit.
As for Penang, he says it is still the place where the hospitals are situated but ironically all the supporting industries are on the mainland. The producers of human capital are on the mainland. One of the key providers is in Seberang Jaya (Masterskill Nursing College) and another in Kedah (AIMST University).
“I don’t see Penang as the sole beneficiary of the healthcare travel and tourism. We are riding on the fact that Penang is just one of the two hot areas as far as health care tourism is concerned, the other one being in Malacca (Manipal Medical University).




CHALLENGES

Redza’s first challenge was to set the engagement direction in the right mode and manner and so he changed the overall approach.
The biggest challenge for Redza was to steer the NCER into what they are now doing and this involved a lot of maneuvering on his part as the captain of the ship and true to his grit and sheer good judgement battles are won and spirits remain high as the figures speak for themselves especially when the NCIA organised the Norther Corridor Bussiness Showcase in KL Sentral recently.
“Those some will say there is a political overtone, it is not the case. The economic corridors are designed in such a way that all the states are represented. There are no political interferences.
“In our case we work with MIDA. We do not have our own tax incentives as our engagement is different. We are the regional enabler and we work with Pemandu in a collaborative engagement and we basically work with our friends.
“We also liaise direct with factories like MDV for example which has never been done before. We come up with new innovative models like the Floral Bee Hive where have the private sector guaranteeing the loans which before this, we normally hear of only the government doing that.
“The unique nature of this is not just about the royal jelly, honey or whatever but the model that we use to extract value out of this. This is private sector land and in the 10MP, the private sector is supposed to drive economic growth. This is it.”
The US remains the single largest foreign investor nation in the Northern Corridor and the investments centre mostly in the E&E sector.
On his next biggest challenge, Redza says that if the Northern Corridor remains status quo, Malaysia will lose out to other countries.
“This is where we hope to institute programmes so that we can move up the value chain and continue to be competitive so that investors can continue to see the NCER as a viable business location and as a water tight value proposition for them.
“Take AMD as an example of this. They have a test facility now compare to assembling and IC packaging in the past. With the new test facility, it becomes a service and it is to improve the local content of our exports.
“This means that we have more value captured in the country and the jobs being offered for this are also highly paid jobs. They now hire technicians and engineers to conduct this testing. And this is where they enter into an agreement with us and are compelled to provide the training for our graduates allowing a transfer of technology. This is a way completes the value chain.”
Citing another example in QAV Redza says the company is not labour intensive but it creates 1,000 spillover jobs from companies supporting them. QAV on its own, he says, is not labour intensive. The definition of labour intensive jobs is now subjective.”
“In Redza’s previous engagement in Cyberjaya, there was a belief that with more computers there would be less manpower but it was proven otherwise as with the increase in computers the more people had to be engaged. It became human capital intensive. The test facility at ADM requires 700 people meaning 700 jobs which are high-tech jobs which are highly paid.”
The Northern Corridor speaks for itself. It is indeed a brown field in nature and they cannot compare themselves with other corridors as each corridor has its own value proposition and its own way of doing things.
The beautiful part of the corridor structure is that all the mentris besar and chief ministers are represented in the council and their state secretaries work closely with the NCIA to deliver the initiatives.
“There are no political issues. We have clear KPIs on what we are doing and what we are going to do. I really don’t believe in blowing the trumpet about what we are going to do. I would rather we get it done first. That is why we take a conscious effort to manage this secondary impact at the spillovers. That has to be managed. The challenge is how we carve out and manage all these value-add to remain in the country.
“You need to find the right activity which is practical and has high value in order to provide higher income levels to the masses. It is about what approach we use to harvest such high value like the Flora Bee Hive venture.”

Flora Bee Hive is an example of a value proposition for the regional roll out for the industrial production of royal jelly in Perak and Penang and Perlis and Kedah soon to follow suit. They have created 600 business opportunities along with 20 jobs in their Kamunting factory.
The NCIA is also being used vigorously by Pemandu and as their regional enabler for the EPPs (entry point projects) in the northern area, Redza also sits in the NKEA (national key economic areas) steering committee.

“This (NCER) is also a programme and we (NCIA) have to make sure that it is carried out. When you talk about transformation, are we not transforming?
“I am a strong believer of the EPPs as I am personally involved until its implementation. QAV is parked under an EPP and QT is part of a catalyst which forms another EPP called L Foundry. We are involved and we are strong believers of the NKEAs. These are not plans but programmes. You see, at 30,000 feet nothing moves but we are on the ground.
Ends.
BACKGROUNDER: The NCER as the regional development initiative encompasses the states of Kedah, Perak, Perlis and Penang in the north of Peninsular Malaysia and leverages on the advantages of the region by emphasising on formulations of growth in areas of agriculture, manufacturing, logistics and tourism which has become the primary focus of NCIA to ensure that social and sustainable development objectives are kept as priorities while stimulating economic growth.
Each company in the corridor is committed towards contributing to the development of the region and brings with them unique products, services and offerings that are unrivalled. The projected gross national income (GNI) from the region is expected to reach RM 13.03 billion and the NCIA is well on track to meet the goals of the region and that of the NKEAs that it supports. The growth of the GNI in the NCER is expected to play a key role in helping the nation realise its goal of achieving high income status by 2020.
The NCER is the only economic region in Malaysia that benefits from its forty years’ of inductrial and manufacturing evolution and its continuous success has contributed directly towards the availability of commercially viable land, sound infrastructure, an in-built business culture and an entrepreneurial mindset.




Official launch: Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop, Minister in Prime Minister’s Department, Economic Planning Unit (left) and Dato’ Mukhriz Mahathir, the Malaysian Deputy Minister of International Trade and Industry (second from left) officiating at the Northern Corridor Business Showcase. Looking on is Datuk Redza Rafiq Abdul Razak, the Chief Executive of the NCIA (centre behind Yakcop and Mukhriz).


Booth signage: Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop, Minister in Prime Minister’s Department, Economic Planning Unit (right) signing on one of the booths at the Northern Corridor Business Showcase. Looking on is Dato’ Mukhriz Mahathir, the Malaysian Deputy Minister of International Trade and Industry (second from right) and Datuk Redza Rafiq Abdul Razak, the Chief Executive of the NCIA (third from right).

Interview session: Siva Kumar, the Editorial Adviser to Corridor Development Corporation Berhad (right) and Zainal Epi, Editor of Malaysian Corridor Magazine (left) was interviewing Datuk Redza Rafiq Abdul Razak, the Chief Executive of the NCIA (middle) on the business showcase.


Ends.