Junz Wong
KOTA KINABALU: A collaboration between an agricultural state and federal government is expected to enable Sabah to directly export its bird’s nests to China before 2019, revealed Agriculture and Food Industry Minister Junz Wong.
Junz said an understanding between Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry (MAFI) and Ministry of Agriculture and Agro-based Industry (MOA) had been achieved after a fruitful trip to the peninsula recently.
The state’s federal counterpart had agreed to assist the state by providing the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), training, forums and such to train the bird’s nest relevant industry players in Sabah.
“Last year and onwards, our bird’s nests could not be exported (directly) to China and all the raw materials have to be sent to the peninsula for processing and quality control before it can be exported out,” said Junz.
“I went to see the Ministry (MOA) and also went to discuss with our ministers and also their machinery (in the peninsula). They actually recognized that Sabah produces one of the best quality bird nests in Malaysia and, therefore, willing to come here to assist us.
“Our industrial players would actually know how to set up factories and how to actually process properly so that we can directly export it from Sabah to China, especially, and other countries,” he explained.
The minister stressed that the state must establish its bird’s nests downstream, for example set-up of factories, to increase employment opportunities and economic development in Sabah.
“I think we will catch it before this year because we will try to catch it before next month. By this year, we will try to implement,” said Junz.