‘Malaysia-Korea deal set to boost local exports’

SEOUL, South Korea (MNTV) – Malay­sia-South Korea eco­nomic ties will be strengthened when a free trade agree­ment (FTA) is final­ized by the first quarter of next year, pav­ing the way for Malay­sian-made halal food products to enter the East Asian nation, reports The Star.

Malay­sian ambas­sador to South Korea Mohd Zam­runi Khalid said there is untapped poten­tial of halal-cer­ti­fied Malay­sian products in Korea’s robust con­veni­ence food mar­ket val­ued at $7.27 billion and pro­jec­ted to grow at 11.43 percent annu­ally until 2030.

Malay­sia’s exports of pro­cessed foods to South Korea have risen by 6.1 pc to reach $154.8 million last year, he noted.

“Halal-cer­ti­fied, high-qual­ity and con­veni­ence-ori­ented Malay­sian brands are well posi­tioned to cap­ture a lar­ger mar­ket share in Korea’s premium food seg­ment,” he said dur­ing the Asean Trade Fair 2025 in Ilsan, Goy­ang.

Zam­runi spoke of oppor­tun­it­ies avail­able for premium pro­cessed foods and snacks fea­tur­ing Malay­sian fla­vors as well as halal-cer­ti­fied con­veni­ence foods. “We expect growth poten­tial in frozen trop­ical fruits (such as duri­ans) and niche ingredi­ents.”

Accord­ing to Mohd Zam­runi, there is grow­ing demand in South Korea for halal, organic and sus­tain­ably-sourced products.

He said Malay­sian brands can cap­it­al­ize on this trend by provid­ing trans­par­ent sup­ply-chain doc­u­ment­a­tion.

Zam­runi under­scored the import­ance of align­ing Malay­sia’s glob­ally-recog­nized halal cer­ti­fic­a­tion by the Malay­sian Islamic Devel­op­ment Depart­ment (Jakim) with Korean Muslim-friendly frame­works, say­ing this could foster trust among new con­sumers. “The Korean Muslim Fed­er­a­tion works closely with Jakim on cer­ti­fic­a­tion,” he added.

Zam­runi said the grow­ing recog­ni­tion for high-qual­ity products with halal cer­ti­fic­a­tion has made more South Korean com­pan­ies inter­ested to ven­ture into halal products.

“Even without the FTA, trade between South Korea and Malay­sia has sur­passed over $20 billion over the past four years.”