10 January 2010

The Malaysian External Trade Development Corporation (Matrade) has allocated two million pounds this year for public relations and marketing campaign here to promote Malaysian cuisines.

Malaysian Trade Commissioner to the United Kingdom Raja Badrulnizam Raja Kamalzaman said the publicity blitz to be launched via the "Malaysia Kitchen" campaign was aimed at promoting Malaysian restaurants in London.

Thirty-eight of the 62 Malaysian restaurants in the United Kingdom are operating in this metropolitan city, he told Malaysian journalists who are here to cover the first official visit to London by Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin from today till Thursday.

Raja Badrulnizam said the campaign also targets to increase customers by 20 to 30 per cent patronising Malaysian restaurants, particulary in London, and to boost processed food imports from Malaysia.

He hoped the campaign would also lead to more people craving for Malaysian cuisines and pave the way for more British tourists to visit Malaysia.

To begin with, he said, Muhyiddin would launch the Malaysian cuisine promotions campaign at the "Taste Of London" event here Monday. Malaysia is the main sponsor of the four-day event.

"Many well-known chefs like Gordon Ramsay, Angela Hartnet, Jason Atherton, Richard Corrigan and Atul Kochhar will attend the launch to promote Malaysian cuisines and the media has been invited to cover the event.

"Visitors to the event will have the opportunity to savour the popular roti canai, rendang and satay.

"We'll also organise three or four visits this year to bring five or six celebrity chefs at a time to Malaysia to enable them to hone their cooking skills in preparing Malaysian dishes and promote Malaysian food here," he said.

The "Malaysia Kitchen" campaign, previously handled by many agencies since 2006 to promote Malaysian cuisines in London and New York, has now been mandated to only Matrade.

Raja Badrulnizam said Matrade would also sponsor courses at leading institutions in London on preparing Malaysian food to increase the number of local talents in Malaysian cuisines.

Matrade also planned to introduce an interactive portal on Malaysian cuisines next month, he said.

"Among others, Malaysian menu will be displayed on the portal and Malaysian food buffs in London will be shown the nearest Malaysian food restaurant to their residential area.

"They can also place orders for Malaysian food via the portal," he said.

Raja Badrulnizam said Matrade would also host Malaysian food activities at various hypermarkets in London like in Selfridge to start with, to demonstrate Malaysian cuisines by roping in many local and Malaysian chefs and well-known figures like Datuk Jimmy Choo to talk on Malaysian food.

Choo from Penang established a multi-billion ringgit show-making business in London.

Overall, Malaysian cuisines ranked fourth or fifth in London with regard to oriental food after Indian, Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese dishes, said Raja Badrulnizam.

He hoped Malaysian food promotion programmes to be hosted this year would increase Malaysian processed food contribution from 1.4 per cent currently.

"I hope to see a significant higher contribution in 2011 and 2012," he said.

The United Kingdom imported from Malaysia goods worth about 1.85 billion pounds in 2008, up 9.9 per cent from 2007, he added.

-- BERNAMA