My Singapore Lychee is better than your Malaysian Rambutan
Looks like another trade spat is brewing between us and our southern neighbours. Apparently the creative folks down there have been repackaging our rambutans as ‘Singapore Lychees’ in markets such as Hong Kong. Orchids and ornamental fish have also fallen under the same 'made-in-Singapore' fate.
Agriculture minister Muhyiddin Yasin said that a number of Singaporean companies had refused to import pre-packaged Malaysian products “as it enables them to pack the products and rebrand them as Singaporean products to be resold elsewhere."
This isn’t the first time I’ve read about this sort of wrong ‘country of origin effect’ attribution to Singapore – Not too long ago, I was shocked to tune into the Travel & Living Channel to have celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain spout the praise of Ampang Yong Tow Foo in a Singapore coffee shop!!! That’s nearly as bad as Made-in-Malaysia Danish cookies!
posted by hew @ 3:26 pm
5 Comments:
Who cares how Singapore re-brand and re-name the product as long as the customers do not complain and if they do then its not Malaysia's problem. They can even called it Singapore strawberries, jelly beans, who cares. Malaysia should keep quiet since they are buying the rambutan from us. They could import elsewhere. At least there is someone importing our rambutans.
We want the Sing $$$.
Aah but there's where the power of branding comes in. With your own brand, you can charge more, so that's where malaysian producers are losing out on. We are basically supplying them the 'raw' commodities at a lower cost and the Singaporeans are re-branding and charging an extra premium. All I can say is that they're smart to do that.
problem is, they didnt buy the rambutans for their nation's consumption. They "re-package" it and sell it to gain more "profit"
Hi there! Actually I believe relationships between ordinary Malaysians & Singaporeans are fine. After all, there are more than a 300,000 Malaysians living in Singapore alone and most of thosem are permanent residents there.
As for the rambutans, the Singaporeans don't actually grow them. They are imported from Malaysia and repacked and re-exported from Singapore, and apparently rebranded as Singapore Lychees. Personally I think they did a brilliant job branding it as most mainland Chinese don't know what rambutans are!
Ah well, what else is new. When Singapore does it, its creative. When Malaysia does it, its stealing/daylight-robbery/etc. When will this Malaysia-bashing ever going to stop.
Post a Comment
<< Home