KUALA LUMPUR: Georgia is motivated to enhance economic cooperation with Malaysia, which has one of the most open economies in the world, its Charge d’Affaires ad interim (a.i.) to Malaysia Levan Machavariani said.
“Malaysia is one of the world’s most open economies and fully integrated in the world’s trade and economic relations, and is an exemplary country for us in this field,” he said in an interview with Bernama at the news agency’s headquarters here recently.
He pointed out that Georgia also practises an open economy and holds leading positions in rankings such as ease of doing business of the World Bank, corruption perception index of the corruption barometer and economic freedom index by the World Heritage Foundation.
As such both countries should work towards raising awareness among the business communities of the two countries, he said.
Machavariani said that Georgia was keen to enhance bilateral trade and attract more investments from Malaysia in various sectors.
He noted that last year, bilateral trade stood at a little bit over US$25 million in Malaysia’s favour with imports of mainly rubber and palm oil while Georgia exported metals and other goods.
“We are working towards promoting Georgian products that we can offer to the Malaysian market and I’m hopeful that these figures will increase,” he said.
However he said that trade in the past four years has shown a positive trend and increased four times, pointing out that in 2011 the figure was very low at some US$7 million but it had increased to US$25 million in 2013.
On another development, he said that currently both countries are negotiating a bilateral agreement in the area of finance on the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement, most probably to be finalised by the end of this year.
Such an agreement would be extremely helpful for the private sector and will support a lot of investments, trade and business contacts, he said.
Machavariani also commended the Asean Economic Community (AEC) due to be set up at the end of the year.
“It is an extremely good incentive to have an economic community, to have a free flow of goods and labour that will support the region and I believe that will give a regional opportunity to develop equally and inclusively,” he said.
He asserted that the AEC would be extremely important for Georgia and would provide vast business opportunities.
Machavariani felt that it would be better to deal with the 10-member Asean countries as a bloc, which would be more beneficial, however bilateral economic ties are still important as they are “a cornerstone of any relations.”
The AEC, one of the three pillars of the Asean Community (AC), will unite the 10 Asean member countries with over 600 million people in a common market.
Malaysia is this year’s chair of Asean, a bloc comprising Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. — Bernama