KUALA LUMPUR: Integrated health supplement company Bioalpha Holdings Bhd (BHB) will be developing a Malaysian Agricultural Hub in China's Hainan Province.
The project's master development plan has received approval from the local authority, the Longhu Town People's government.
BHB managing director William Hon said that having received approval from the authority for its master development plan, the company is now working on the next steps to get the project started.
He said the hub would take three to five years to complete and is expected to contribute positively to the company.
"As part of our strategic focus to grow our presence in Hainan, we have also established our China headquarters there," he said in a statement today.
The hub spans 21 acres of land and is strategically located with easy accessibility to Hainan's capital city of Haikou and the central city of Ding'an Country via various expressways.
The initial phase of the hub will focus on upstream and downstream activities such as formulation, manufacturing, and even commercialising functional food products using Malaysian indigenous and tropical herbs.
The planned development of a research and development (R&D) facility and factory complex on-site within the hub can further bolster BHB's formulation and manufacturing activities.
As announced earlier in July 2022, this endeavour will also allow BHB to be eligible for tax incentives and exemptions offered by the local government.
Over the past few years, BHB has been localising its operations in the country.
The company has set up an office in the Yangpu economic development zone in Hainan, a warehouse and processing centre in the Guizhou province, and procurement teams in Guizhou and Hainan.
It has recently formed a procurement team in Foshan, Guangdong province.
"The capabilities we have built enable us further to strengthen BHB's presence in the country.
"Besides our involvement in developing the hub, we also supply health foods to customers in Guizhou, China.
"Leveraging BHB's infrastructure and resources in China, we have the ready capacity and can facilitate and expedite orders more efficiently," said Hon.
BHB's health food supply operations have swiftly resumed following China's upliftment of zero-Covid restrictions.
The deliveries of healthy ingredients for preparing healthy food and nutritional meals to all schools in the Guizhou province are now back on track.
"Our focus is to ensure smooth delivery to customers in Guizhou while supplying premium products with high nutritional value that carry higher profit margins.
"Post upliftment of movement restrictions, we are experiencing an encouraging uptrend in orders," Hon said further.
"We are focused on executing our strategic initiatives in China, particularly in Hainan, to capitalise on arising opportunities.
"To support our plans, we have expanded our headcount and hired new experienced talents in China to accelerate our expansion.
"We look forward to sharing further updates on our progress in due course," Hon said.