Malaysia seeks deepening of trade ties with India

Malaysia today pitched for deepening its economic engagement with India and said that achieving the trade target of USD 15 billion annually by 2020, which the two countries had set, looks "promising".

Malaysia's High Commissioner to India Hidayat Abdul Hamid, while addressing an interactive session on 'Doing Business with Malaysia' here, said India was an important trading partner for Malaysia and both the countries needed to work closely in order to deepen bilateral trade relations.

"Our bilateral trade performance has strengthened to USD 14.3 billion in 2017, marking an increase of over 21.8 per cent from USD 11.8 billion in 2016. From January to June this year, the two-way trade has reached USD 7.7 billion," he said at the event organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, and the Malaysian High Commission.

Noting that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak had set the annual target of trade at USD 15 billion by 2020, the envoy said he believes that with the current momentum and performance that target "looks promising".

"We just need to put more efforts in realizing that," Hidayat said.

Talking about investment opportunities available in Malaysia, he said the country has many advantages from which India can benefit.

"Malaysia's strength in areas like infrastructure, healthcare, construction industry, palm oil and petroleum products had been part of India economic development agenda for many years. A number of prominent investors from India are already strengthening their foothold in Malaysia and we welcome more investment from India," he said.

"We would like to encourage more importers to source from Malaysia since we have bilateral trade agreement namely Malaysia India Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (MICECA) and regional trade agreement namely ASEAN India FTA (AIFTA)," the Malaysian envoy said.

Roswaidin Mohd Zain, Consul (Investment), Consulate General of Malaysia (Investment Section), Mumbai, Mohd. Feisal Ezuan Abdul Aziz, Trade Commissioner, Consulate General of Malaysia (Trade Section), Mumbai, Nagendran Balasundram, Regional Manager (South Asia), Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) India, Sulaiman Suip, Director, Tourism Malaysia, New Delhi, Khairul Anwar, Director, Malaysian Timber Council and Anand Dureja, Head -- International, Oyo Rooms, made presentations on the investment opportunities available in Malaysia.