Going beyond the country of manufacture aka exporting has many challenges and without proper planning, the momentum carried on from the explosive sales at the home base will fizzle out.

You could be reading this very early on in your product journey, personally it is never to early to prepare for export opportunities are as good as how fast we are able to execute them. In the regulated product market business deals take significant longer period of times than services.

Why?

Simply it is regulation standards like GMP, HACCP, ISO22000, Cosmetic GMP and/or supplement drug registration of products.

Typical Time Lines? (Malaysia)

Below are generalizations of timelines in Malaysian context, different countries have vastly different timelines. Usually much shorter especially in developed countries.

Food & Cosmetics: 2 weeks – 1 month

Supplement & Traditional: 6 months – 9 months

Drugs: Bio-equivalency study ~ 1 Year.

Universal Standards, GMP HACCP ISO22000?

It is true there is generally accept one country GMP is usually accepted by other countries on manufacturing standards.

Some product applications will require the GMP certificate for product registration.

HACCP followed by ISO22000 are higher standards which sit ontop of GMP. (More detailing in paper work.) Certain countries such as Europe would prefer ISO22000 whilst countries like Thailand only accept HACCP not GMP for imported products.

Some rules are unwritten and most would require a local entity to register. Read more below.

Exporting? What to think about.

The biggest stumbling block when exporting is the appointment of the distributor and/or agent. In most situations, I would only recommend having an HQ or principal distributor in foreign territory for the following reasons. Below is the list of foreign-related documents you require:

  1. Product Registration
    Usually, a local entity or address is required for registration of any product in most countries.
  2. Company Registration in a foreign country.
    Restrictions of local entity ownership in the foreign market.
    It is very common for countries to impose a minimum 51% shareholding to be held by a citizen of the country to establish a private limited company.

    This situation results in the following:
    a. Registration of trademarks before signing distribution agreement
    b. Distribution agreement with clauses to transfer ownership of the product registration to another appointed company.
  3. Licenses to import for a foreign company (if self-run)

Product registrations are a very sensitive issue. With ownership usually held by the country of sale. Regulations to unregister can be complicated coupled with sometimes bitter distributors it can cause problems with the appointment of future distributors.

Which Certificates do I need to Export?

  1. Certificate of free sales
  2. Phytosanitation certificate (depends)
  3. Halal
  4. Related manufacturing licenses (GMP, HACCP, ISO22000 etc – Depends)

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