BRILLIANT Holdings,a wholly-owned bumiputera company which is based in Kota Baru ,is seriously eyeing the foreign market for its herbs products.

Executive chairman Norrisham Ismail said the computer will focus on ASEAN countries and west Asia in its efforts to strengthen oversea markets.

The company has already found market in Brunei and Singapore and initial effort to penetrate the market in Jordan has shown positive signs, he said in Kota Baru yesterday.

Norrisham said the company was also expanding its business locally by opening more distributing centres apart from the current centres in Sungai Petani, Kemaman and Rompin.

He said that centres in Gombak,Kuching and Keluang would be opened soon in line with the company’s objective of opening a centre in each state by June.

He was confident that the products made up of herbs prepared traditionally by the Malays could garner a wider market if they were manufactured through modern approach.

Raw material like mengkudu (noni) ,ginger and Tongkat Ali were some of the materials which had always been associated with health and the Malay traditional medicine.

Now it had been generally accepted as such,including among foreigners,Norrisham said.

" For example the move to come out with ginger honey ginseng drink which is a combination of Chinese and Malay traditional herbs,has received very good response," he said .He said that in order to compete with stiff global competition,each product needed to be packaged properly in powder form,cordial or sachet.

He said that Brilliant’s factory in pengkalan Chepa near Kota Baru was in the midst of producing 32 products worth RM1.5 million a month and RM5 million depending on demand.

The factory produces cosmetics ,snake ,drinks and other sundry items under the brand name "Brifood" and " Briclean."

Brilliant was set up last years with a working capital of RM1.5 million ,an authorised capital of RM500,000 and paid up capital of RM250,000.

Source: Business Times, 19 / 1 / 2000