Malaysia To Expand Collaboration With New Zealand In IT, Tourism Sectors

KUALA LUMPUR, April 18 (Bernama) -- Malaysia looks forward to expand its collaboration with New Zealand in information technology (IT) and tourism so as to tap the opportunities in both sectors, said International Trade and Industry Minister Mustapa Mohamed. He said that New Zealand had done well in diversifying its economy over the past few years and the tourism and IT sectors, among others, had shown significant growth while offering huge investment opportunities for Malaysia. “There are many areas in which New Zealand is strong, including human capital development, and we can learn a lot from it. “For us, we want to learn from their experience, in terms of best practices, ease of doing business and openness of their economy that in turn creating huge opportunities (for us)," he told reporters after the Malaysia-New Zealand joint forum here, Tuesday. Themed ‘Turbulent Times – The importance of an Open Economy’, the one-day forum was held in conjunction with the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Malaysia and New Zealand, and New Zealand’s Trade Minister Todd McClay’s visit. The objective of the forum was to provide the Malaysian and New Zealand business communities the opportunity to gain first-hand insight into Malaysia-New Zealand trade and investment relations and learn about their experiences as open economies. Meanwhile, McClay said New Zealand offered vast opportunities in the tourism sector as it was focusing on hotel development to cater to the growing number of tourist arrivals since the past few years. “We want more investment (in tourism), we want people to come, invest and build more hotels in New Zealand so we can keep up with that growth. “Malaysia is a growing economy, you have a young workforce and your economy is extremely dynamic. There are a lot of things that we can continue to do together, there are a lot of New Zealand’s companies that would like to invest in Malaysia as we see Malaysia as a hub of the region,” he said. In 2016, the total bilateral trade between two countries stood at US$1.42 billion with exports amounted to US$730 million, while imports amounted to US$680 million. For the January-February period this year, Malaysia’s total trade with the New Zealand increased 22.6 per cent to US$247.6 million compared with the corresponding period of 2016. -- BERNAMA