Malaysia's MATRADE Expected To Ink MoU With China Post At CAEXPO 2017 - Minister

KUALA LUMPUR, April 14 (Bernama) -- The Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation (MATRADE) is expected to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Chinese state-owned enterprise, China Post Group Corporation, during the 14th China-ASEAN Expo (CAEXPO) 2017 to promote Malaysian products in the republic. Malaysian International Trade and Industry (MITI) Deputy Minister, Chua Tee Yong, said China Post has about 600,000 stores nationwide and the deal was seen as one of MATRADE's strategies to market Malaysian products in China. "Apart from capitalising on the offline stores, MATRADE is also looking to establish a Malaysian Pavilion on China Post's online platform to introduce Malaysian products there. "Thus far, we believe the feedback from China Post has been very positive," he told a press conference on CAEXPO 2017 here, Friday. Themed "Jointly Build the 21th Century Maritime Silk Road, Promote Regional Economic Integration through Tourism", CAEXPO 2017 will be held from Sept 12-15 in Nanning, China. Chua said the ministry had directed MATRADE Guangzhou office to follow up on the matter to ensure that once the partnership was established, it would kickstart a working mechanism to introduce Malaysian products in China. Asked if Malaysia and China could achieve the bilateral trade target of US$160 billion this year under a five-year economic and trade programme signed in 2013, Chua said as the global trade growth was slower than the global gross domestic product growth in recent years, this had affected trade between Malaysia and China. "This showed that the target could probably take a longer period to achieve," he said. Earlier this month, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry announced that bilateral trade between Malaysia and China grew by 28.9 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y) to US$4.48 billion (RM19.79 billion) in February 2017, whereby exports jumped 47.6 per cent y-o-y to US$2.16 billion (RM9.57 billion). The increase in exports was mainly driven by higher exports of electrical and electronics products, petroleum products, chemicals and chemical products, rubber products, liquefied natural gas, as well as palm oil and palm oil-based agriculture products. --BERNAMA