PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia and China are set to achieve a total bilateral trade of US$160 billion by 2017, says Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.
During a closed-door meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping at his office yesterday, both leaders also discussed a five year programme for economic and trade cooperation and agreed to elevate the current cooperation between both countries into a comprehensive strategic partnership.
The Prime Minister said China also expressed keen interest to participate in Malaysia’s high-speed rail project, China-Malaysia Qinzhou Industrial Park and the Malaysia-China Kuantan Industrial Park.
“We also discussed greater cooperation in financial services. We’d like to see more trade between the countries settled in the Renminbi and Ringgit.
“Information should also be disseminated to the private sectors of both countries. We also agreed that financial institutions in Malaysia and China should assume a greater role in both countries,” he said at a joint press conference with Xi after the meeting.
Xi and his 100-member delegation arrived in Malaysia on Thursday for a three-day state visit.
Both leaders are expected to attend the Malaysia-China Economic Summit, later today, aimed at promoting and enhancing business-to-business linkages and collaboration between Malaysia and China.
Najib said President Xi also indicated some new areas of cooperation between the two countries, which included information and communication technology, biotechnology, science and space technology.
“We also agreed to step up our cooperation in law enforcement, combating transnational crime, cyber security, as well as, stronger and deeper military cooperation,” he said.
He also said people-to-people relations between the two countries was very important as Malaysia and China would celebrate the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations next year.
President Xi has proposed the visit of 100 young people from Malaysia to visit China and a cultural troupe from China to visit Malaysia.
“It is very kind of the Chinese government and his excellency to invite me to visit China. I look forward to visit China and celebrate the 40th anniversary of our important and strong relations,” he said.
Najib said both leaders also agreed to establish a Consul-General office in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, and Pulau Pinang, while Malaysia would also establish a similar office in Nanning.
He said both countries would also work closely in the regional and multilateral context and, in this regard, the cooperation between China-Asean and Asean-China was very important.
“I’d like to thank the President for the strong priority given towards China’s relations with Asean. We fully support his suggestion for the establishment of an Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank which would certainly help in the development of Asean,” he said.
Najib also expressed hope that the establishment of the first overseas campus of Xiamen University in Malaysia would soon become a reality. — Bernama