By NNN-Bernama
Dubai : The Malaysia Services Exhibition (MSE), to be held in Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), will showcase Malaysian companies which had good track records, Trade Commissioner Noraslan Hadi Abdul Hadi said.
He said that the 170 companies taking part were invited and selected by Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation (MATRADE) as it wanted to show what Malaysia could offer.
“We wanted to have companies which have good track record that can showcase what they have done in the past. Probably they have not done anything here but had done something in other parts of the word,” he said at a media briefing on the MSE here.
He said that 11 specific industry clusters would be showcased at the exhibition from Jan 13 to 15 with plenty of “heavyweight” companies.
“These are the clusters which we have identified in order to promote services in areas where we are strong in,” he added.
The 11 clusters are construction, engineering, healthcare hospital related services, information and communications technology, oil and gas, education and specialised training, energy and power generation, finance, logistics and transportation, professional services and franchising clusters.
Some of the companies involve are Eversendai, WCT Engineering, Gamuda and LCL Corporation, which had made it big in the Middle East.
Hadi said that it was high time to promote Malaysia’s services sector and move ahead as the country was moving into becoming a developed nation, pointing out that most developed nations obtained their income from services.
“We feel it is timely for us to get together all the Malaysian service providers because all this while we have been moving in a very low profile,” he added.
On the choice of Sharjah as the exhibition’s venue, he said that he expected not only those from the UAE to visit the MSE but also others from the Middle East countries and North Africa.
“We know this region is where the growth is very high, and we wanted to use it as a platform here,” he added.
In terms of trade, he said that in 2006 trade between Malaysia and the UAE stood at 12 billion dirham, which was a 20 percent increase from 2005.
Hadi said that from January to October last year, trade increased close to 28 percent compared with the same period in 2006.
A forum will also be held during the MSE which would see speakers like Mukhriz Mahathir, chairman of Malaysian Franchise Association, Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) chief executive officer Badlisham Ghazali and Chairman of Construction Industry Development Board of Malaysia Jamilus Hussein.
The MSE is MATRADE’s first services exhibition held outside Malaysia.