BERNAS is the sole importer of rice. It handles approximately 700 000 to 900 000 tonnes per year, which is approximately 40 to 50 per cent of total rice supplies. A range of agricultural products require import licences. These include eggs, poultry, fresh or preserved meat and offal, live animals, round cabbages, sugar, cereal flour, rice and liquid milk.

All imports of non-pork meat, processed meat, poultry, egg and egg products must receive halal certification from an approved Islamic Centre. The production facilities for these products are jointly inspected by the Malaysian Department of Veterinary Services and the Department of Islamic Development.

There have been complaints from US exporters that the Malaysian halal certification process is non-transparent (United States Trade Representative 2004). As mentioned earlier, Australian exports of beef were adversely affected in 2006 as a result of changes to the halal protocol. In December 2005, a National Council of Islamic Affairs Malaysia fatwa outlined that pneumatic/mechanical stunning would be forbidden for the halal slaughtering of cattle. Only electrical stunning or the complete absence of stunning would be acceptable.

Sugar, bread and flour are among a number of basic agricultural (and non-agricultural) items subject to price controls in Malaysia. Domestic prices and imports of sugar and wheat products are controlled and predetermined by the government. Unless significant pressures on domestic prices emerge, imports will not be allowed to increase. Malaysia has indicated its intention to review its price controls with a possibility of replacing them with market oriented measures (Burton 2008). As part of this process, in June 2008 the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister announced that ceiling prices on fresh chicken would be removed and imports of processed chicken would be allowed (NSTonline 2008). However, at this stage price controls on sugar and wheat based products remain.

As a member of ASEAN, Malaysia is party to the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) .Through its membership of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), Malaysia is party to the Japan–ASEAN and Korea–ASEAN trade agreements. ASEAN is currently negotiating trade agreements with a number of other countries (table 6). In recent years, Malaysia has signed bilateral trade agreements with Japan and Pakistan. Malaysia is currently negotiating bilateral trade agreements with a number of countries — namely, Australia, New Zealand, India and the United States. Malaysia is committed to reduce tariffs and adopt trade facilitating protocols for member countries of those agreements.

Agreements between countries that reduce agricultural trade barriers help agricultural exporters in the partner countries. Australia, as the largest exporter of agricultural products to Malaysia, can be expected to gain from the finalisation and implementation of a free trade agreement with Malaysia. However, the size of the gain will depend on the extent and timing of the reduction of tariffs and non-tariff barriers in the agreement. As noted above, Malaysia has negotiated, or is in the process of negotiating, trade agreements with other countries. Therefore, the benefits to Australian agricultural exporters from any Australia–Malaysia free trade agreement will be influenced by any reductions in trade barriers faced by competing agricultural exporters.