Malaysia

Agriculture and food production contributes to 8.2% to GDP in 2017. Industrial corps consist of oil, palm, rubber, cocoa, tobacco and pepper while food crops include paddy, fruits, vegetables and coconut.

The thrust areas are:

Health Food/Functional food

• Organic farming focusing on organic products, health foods including low caloric, fibre / nutrient enriched products, fruit juices and herbal products
• New products using Malaysia’s traditional herbs and resources for Asian and global markets

Convenience Food

• Locally made convenience foods include frozen foods such as ready to eat meals, spiced fish and chicken, ethnic or traditional cuisine, instant powdered juice and retort pouch products
• Food products with Asian recipes with convenience food technologies to meet the increasing global demand for specialty and ethnic foods

Food ingredients

• Functional ingredients, food flavours, additives, colouring, seasonings and palm oil based additives
• Quality backed by continuous nutritional research

Thailand

The Food industry contributed a 23% to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2015. Thailand is one of the world’s largest producers and exporters of food and comprise over 116,000 companies. The so-called “Kitchen of the World” aims at expanding food exports to new potential markets, particularly ASEAN, China, India, Russia and Africa.

The Food Innopolis provides a complete service on research, development and innovations and facilitates international and local leading food companies to invest in Food Innopolis. This innovation ecosystem consists of:

• Rental spaces and facilities for research, development and innovations (RDI)
• One-stop service center
• Market Research
• Business Development

Cambodia

Agricultural sector is one of key priority sectors of the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC). Currently, Rice production, farmers have been changing their production habits from consumption to trade due to the high market demands. Relevant stakeholders including public sector, private sector, and NGOs have been providing services to increase knowledge and know-how to the local farmers. The Private sector has directed towards export-oriented production through increased processing capacity with quality and quantity to meet the international market demands especially export of yellow bananas, mango (KeoRomeat), pepper, cassava, and other key agricultural products.

The Cambodian industry remains weak as reflected by its simple structure, narrow base and low level of sophistication, while mostly concentrated in garment and food processing industries.

Key features of Cambodian industries consist of:

• a lack of diversity in industrial base
• an informal and missing middle structure
• a weak entrepreneurship
• an urban-centered industry
• a low value addition
• low level of technology supplication.