| Danial Norjidi |
THE establishment of the Western Foods and Packaging Sdn Bhd (WFP) margarine manufacturing plant is a significant development for Brunei Darussalam and will open up many possibilities for downstream expansion.
These were among the points highlighted during a speech and interviews yesterday following the opening of the WFP manufacturing plant at Serasa Industrial Site.
WFP is a wholly owned subsidiary of Turkey-based Marsa Yag Sanayi Ve Ticaret AS (Marsa). Marsa’s shareholders include Yildiz Holding, one of Turkey’s leading food conglomerates, as majority owner and the Government of His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah ibni Al-Marhum Sultan Haji Omar ‘Ali Saifuddien Sa’adul Khairi Waddien, Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam through the Strategic Development Capital Fund under the Ministry of Finance.
Ali Ulker, Vice-Chairman of Yildiz Holding gave welcoming remarks at yesterday’s opening ceremony in which he shared that a strategic division of Yildiz Holding is margarine and oil business.
“I am very happy that we are starting production in this modern factory, which is state-of-the-art and has the latest technology,” he said.
It was highlighted that the margarine plant’s capacity is 60,000 tonnes a year, with further expansion possibility to 120,000 tonnes a year.
“Margarine is a product with many downstream expansion possibilities. It may support many other businesses and trade,” he said, adding that the company is aiming at “export markets which will bring important savings to the country in logistics”.
WFP currently employs 75 people, of whom 72 are locals. “We are at the moment employing 75 people, and soon with increased capacity utilisation, Insya Allah we are hoping to reach 200 people.
“No surprise to us, with a good education system in the country, our talented employees learnt quickly about margarine processing in a training programme conducted in Marsa plant in Turkey,” he shared.
Speaking to the Sunday Bulletin yesterday, Director of WFP Dr Zeki Ziya Sozen said, “Brunei is at the heart of Southeast Asia and with a lot of trade relations with nearby countries. It is a peaceful country and destined to grow very fast industrially. That is the reason we have chosen Brunei.”
Meanwhile, Dato Seri Setia Awang Haji Bahrin bin Abdullah, Minister of Development and Chairman of the Strategic Development Capital Fund also spoke to the Sunday Bulletin on the significance of the establishment of the WFP margarine manufacturing plant.
“Not only do we see a plant that is world class and the best of breed, but it is also producing a significant amount of products. So we’re talking about 200 tonnes per day, meaning 60,000 tonnes per year. That is the capacity of the plant,” he said.
“We are hopeful that we will be able to market these products to those markets which we are targeting, and with the quality and with the costs that we have, we are quite confident that that will happen. If we make a success of this, then we can add on easily the second phase, which will double the capacity.
“On top of that, we are talking about really significant amounts of products coming from Brunei,” he noted.
Elaborating further, he said, “Now that we have products to take out of Brunei, Insya Allah the shipping costs will start going lower. It gets better and better as we become successful in terms of producing products that are made in Brunei.
“From here, there will be related industries that we will develop, because this is margarine. From margarine you can develop so many other things – pastries, biscuits – and there are already discussions in terms of going into those areas.
“We are looking at building on our current success, looking at it as a catalyst for us to further industrialise,” he added. “So I think it is significant.”
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