Tokyo, 24 October 2014

Malaysia leading retailer, AEON CO. (M) BHD recently hosted a visit to the ‘Best of Malaysia’ exhibition at AEON Makuhari New City in Japan, a collaboration project between AEON Malaysia, Ministry of Agriculture & Agro-Based Industry and Ministry of Tourism of Malaysia. The four-day program was held concurrently at seven selected AEON malls in Japan from 17th to 20th October.

Participating in the visit were Yang Berhormat Dato’ Sri Ismail Sabri bin Yaakob, Malaysia’s Minister of Agriculture & Agro-Based Industry, Hendy Assan, Charge D’ Affaires Japan, Kazunori Umemoto, AEON Retail President, Hisake Kunihiko, Vice President of AEON Retail, Suchiya Mitsuko, AEON Retail Foodline Merchandising Director, Shibata Eiji, Senior Executive Director of AEON Holding, and Poh Ying Loo, Executive Director of AEON Malaysia.

Supporting the ‘Visit Malaysia Year 2014’ campaign, AEON Malaysia took the opportunity to promote Malaysia by highlighting the national food products, handicraft and souvenirs, local fruits, flowers and SME products. Besides giving a better exposure of local entrepreneurs overseas, the initiative also serves as one of the platforms to promote Malaysian Halal food, thus establishing Malaysia and AEON as the first Halal Food pioneer in Japan.

“With this initiative, we believe it will create more opportunities for local entrepreneurs to expand their market in overseas particularly in Japan. We urge farmers and agricultural entrepreneurs to seize the opportunity to showcase their best products to the global market and gain lucrative income,” said Dato’ Sri Ismail during the tour.

Among the activities at the exhibition were cultural dance and traditional song performances, cooking demo and product sampling, traditional costume parade, and kebaya nyonya making demo.

“Agro-based products, such as local fruits and fruit-processed products such as jelly pudding, jam, fruit drinks, and snacks are in high demand and popular in Japan. We truly believe in the good quality of the made-in-Malaysia products, hence we are glad to be part of this initiative to help showcase the best of Malaysia to the Japanese people,” said Kazunori Umemoto.

A total of 158 Malaysian products, including 89 food-based products were marketed in seven AEON supermarkets including AEON Makuhari, AEON Tsudanuma, AEON Narita, AEON Funabashi, AEON Shinonome, AEON Shinagawa and AEON Rinku Sennan during the four-day Best of Malaysia program. Customers were given opportunity to participate in a lucky draw to win a trip to Malaysia.