ASEAN Ports Association Malaysia (MAPA)

PART of Penang Port will be turned into a halal section with halal concept facilities by mid-October.

State Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Committee chairman Abdul Malik Abul Kassim said yesterday the Penang Port was discussing with a Syariah compliance logistics company plans to brand Penang as a halal port.

“The Penang Port has already obtained the Syariah family compliance approval in May.

“The state is now having direct discussions with the Rotterdam Port in Holland and with other related logistics companies,” he said.

Abdul Malik said although Penang Port had allocated certain portions of the port area to be turned into a halal port, the areas would be expanded progressively depending on the demand for halal shipments.

“The state will also embark on a drive to create awareness among exporters on the port halal facilities to enable them to trace where the raw materials were obtained from, their packaging and the company used to transport the products,” he said.

He added that once operational, the halal port could take advantage of the opportunites provided by the halal industry in southern Thailand.

Halal products from southern Thailand are currently being exported via Bangkok.

Abdul Malik said the halal port in Penang would be similar to the one in Rotterdam.

It will have cold room facilities, storage areas and other related facilities to store halal products.

He said the state would look into tapping the Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle (IMTGT) to attract investors for the halal industry.

“The state is keen to take advantage of the growing US trillion-dollar halal products industry worldwide,” he said.

By : The Star Online

PENANG Port Sdn Bhd (PPSB) is carrying out a rebranding exercise which will see it enhancing its facilities and services to clients while positioning its entire port operations under a new image.

Its managing director, Datuk Ahmad Ibnihajar said the entire rebranding process will not only involve the services the port is offering but also the image, delivery and the work structure of the organisation and its employees.

He said the changes are in order for PPSB to play a bigger role in driving the region’s logistics industry, in line with the government’s aspirations to make Penang the logistics hub for the Northern Corridor Economic Region (NCER).

When met by Bernama recently, he said that PPSB so far has identified several image solutions that were suited for the company to adopt for its rebranding exercise and hoped to finalise them by the first quarter of next year.

A rebranding programme could then be carried out to give workers a fresh inspiration and encourage them to work harder and make Penang Port relevant to the region’s logistics industry.

“We also want to attract users in the northern region including Southern Thailand to use the Penang Port as a main hub for exporting halal products to the rest of the world,” Ahmad said.

He said PPSB was also working to attract bigger ships from the Middle East and India to use the Penang Port as their cargo delivery and loading centre in the future.

“To enable the bigger ships to call here, we need to deepen the Pulau Pinang Straits and this will need a huge amount of money,” he said.

Ahmad also said that people often had a wrong view of PPSB and thought of it as being only a provider of ferry services and used the services to measure the entire capability of the company.

“That is not accurate, as besides the ferry (services), we are also involved in cargo handling, landing of cruise ships and others. We recorded profit in all the other services except the ferry services,” he added. – Bernama

By: btimes.com.my