Congkak, a traditional leisure game in Malaysia, will hit the West Asian market in a big way next year.

"The market for congkak is tremendous in countries such as Dubai, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia," said Mr. Ting Sie Bing, the man behind popular board games such as Saidina, Sahibba and Mind Reader. Mr. Ting the managing director of Syarikat Permainan Malaysia (SPM) will be visiting these countries soon to promote the game and he expects to come back with orders worth $250,000.

The congkak that Mr. Ting has designed is made of medium hardwood and is much simpler and easier to handle compared with those produced for the local market. "I will patent the design soon and hopefully, introduce the game in the local market to test public reaction to the minor changes that have been made," he said in an interview.

He explained that the game is 3,000 years old and was first played by the Egyptian in 1400 BC. "Internationally the game is known as Macala and is a popular pastime in West Africa, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. In Liberia the game is called Owari."

Mr. Ting will also introduce mini snooker to the West Asian countries. The company won a $7 million contract to supply the table game to a Japanese toy company.

SPM has sold box games worth about $360,000 to an Australian toy company and one container of mini snooker to Qatar valued at $60,000 this year. "We will be promoting our board games and mini games in the European and the American markets next year." Mr. Ting, a former industrial training instructor with the Labour and Manpower Ministry, formed the company in 1976 with an initial investment of $30,000.

Without revealing details, he said the company is now worth "several million". His first product was Sahibba, which is a Bahasa Malaysia version of the Scrabble. Currently the company markets 30 types of games of which 10 are being sold worldwide. Almost all these games were designed by Mr. Ting. "Most of my designs are originals and are copyright protected."

He is now designing a new product which is three dimensional and is based on a very common game. "I am still working on it." He said this idea was based on observations of developments in the toys and games industry in developed countries which have moved form 2-D to 3-D products. One example is the Rubic Cube.

"We have to be innovative and we must continuously promote our products through aggressive marketing. It is easy to sell products which are already in the market butto sell new ones, we must have good marketing strategies."

Mr. Ting makes full use of the services of the Malaysian Export Promotion Centre in Jalan Raja Laut, Kuala Lumpur, to promote his product and to find new contacts. He also liases closely with the Trade and Industry Ministry and has taken part in many trade missions overseas.