India’s Prime Minister Modi to visit Malaysia today

0

Narendra Modi

PUTRAJAYA: India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is on a scheduled visit to this region, is making a stopover in Malaysia today.

The Foreign Ministry (Wisma Putra) said this visit is to enable him to personally extend his best wishes and congratulations to Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad on Pakatan Harapan’s momentous electoral victory at the 14th General Election and his recent appointment as the 7th Prime Minister of Malaysia.

“This would be the first meeting between the two leaders,” it said in a statement here yesterday.

Modi’s last visit to Malaysia was on Nov 23, 2015.

Wisma Putra said Malaysia and India enjoyed close relations through cultural and historical linkages as well as in various key areas particularly infrastructure development, education, tourism and defence.

India is Malaysia’s largest trading partner in South Asia with total trade amounting to RM61.43 billion in 2017.

During the brief stopover, Wisma Putra said Modi would also be meeting Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and her spouse, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, which is also their first meeting.

It said the meetings between leaders of both countries underline the fundamental strength of the millennia-old relations between Malaysia and India.

“It also demonstrates the strong commitment of both countries to further strengthen the strategic partnership.

“Further, it is a meeting of minds between two important regional democracies,” it said.

Both countries have had regular elections at the State as well as at the Federal level, and have experienced peaceful transfers of power, said Wisma Putra. — Bernama