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Coffee Star signs MoU with Belgium’s Miko Koffie at Expo 2020 Dubai
Fario Holdings Sdn Bhd (Coffee Star) was one of three Malaysian SMEs to sign memoranda of understanding at Expo 2020 Dubai, agreements worth RM100 million in total, according to SME Corp Malaysia.
KUALA LUMPUR, 15 February 2022 — Artificial intelligence and innovation. Medicine and health. Drone-related services. Those, according to the Ministry of Entrepreneur Development and Cooperatives (MEDAC), were the industries Malaysia’s start-ups and small businesses were there to highlight at Expo 2020 Dubai. Coffee was not on the list.
Yet when three Malaysian small and medium enterprises signed memoranda of understanding at the expo on Monday, one of the pairings carried two coffee names: Fario Holdings Sdn Bhd (Coffee Star) and Miko Koffie NV of Belgium.
Sinar Harian reported the signings, carrying a report from the national news agency Bernama. The three agreements, made with prospective international business partners, were worth RM100 million in total, according to a statement from SME Corp Malaysia, an agency under MEDAC. The report did not say how that figure was divided between them.
The other two pairings were Propeasy Sdn Bhd with Mahaley Marketing, and Govicle Sdn Bhd with Six Day Company LLC.
None of the three Malaysian firms went on its own. MEDAC had taken 17 start-ups and SMEs, billed as high performers, to Expo 2020 Dubai for Malaysia SME Week, with SME Corp running the programme for the ministry.
Datuk Suriani Ahmad, MEDAC’s secretary-general, tied the ministry’s part in the expo to a wider government aim: making start-ups and SMEs an engine of growth again by working with potential investors and business partners.
“This will help enhance the start-up ecosystem to meet the needs of global industry,” she said (translated).
For the owner of a growing business, the mechanics are the lesson. A ministry-led delegation, with an agency carrying out the programme and announcing its results, put small Malaysian firms across the table from overseas counterparts. The signature itself was a starting point. An MoU is a handshake put in writing: it records shared intent, not a finished contract, and the report described the overseas companies as potential partners.
Today, Coffee Star runs Auto-Baristas at more than 114 locations across Malaysia, and on 24 September 2026 it launched its fully managed Office Coffee Service at MIHAS 2026. The agency that announced the Dubai signings appears on its record again: National Winner, SME ESG Challenge 2025/2026 (SME Corp Malaysia × UN Global Compact Network Malaysia, Brunei & Cambodia) for Bean2Blossom, its coffee-grounds composting programme.
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