Envoy calls for more efforts on bilateral trade

India and Malaysia need to work closely in order to deepen bilateral trade relations, which was US$14.3 billion in 2017, said the Malaysian envoy to New Delhi.

“Our bilateral trade performance has strengthened to US$14.3 billion in 2017, marking an increase of over 21.8% from US$11.8 billion in 2016,” said High Commissioner Hidayat Abdul Hamid.

The two-way trade has reached US$ 7.7 billion in the first six months of 2018.

The two countries have set a bilateral trade target of US$15 billion by 2020.

“Hence, I believe with the current momentum and performance, this target looks promising. We just need to put more efforts in realizing that”, he told the interactive session on ‘Doing Business with Malaysia’.

It was organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and the High Commission of Malaysia in New Delhi on 27 Aug 2018.

Talking about investment opportunities available in Malaysia, Hidayat Abdul Hamid said India can benefit from many advantages in Malaysia.

“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,” said the envoy.

“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).” fiinews.com