Aussie Firms To Be More Aggressive In Exploring Opportunities In Malaysia, Sea

By Rosemarie Khoo Mohd Sani KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 10 (Bernama) -- Australian businesses will be more aggressive in exploring opportunities in Malaysia and Southeast Asia (SEA) and leverage their expertise particularly in food and agriculture, services and healthcare sectors. Malaysia Australia Business Council (MABC) Chairman, Leigh Howard, said the companies were positive about the prospects of growing their businesses in SEA and were looking at Malaysia as the gateway to enter this region. "Malaysia has been doing a great job as a gateway to the ASEAN market with some 640 million people, and we would to like to see more of our companies to establish operations here and attract more investments into Malaysia," he told Bernama at the Australian Business Asia conference here, Thursday. Howard said that there were also opportunities for Malaysian and Australian companies to form collaborations and partnership to venture into the other regions of the world. At present, he said there are over 3,800 Australian companies in Malaysia and this would continue to grow. Meanwhile, commenting on Donald Trump's win in the US Presidential election, Howard said he was pleased to see most markets rebounded from their initial reactions to the result. "Indeed, both candidates (Trump and Hillary Clinton) stated they would oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade accord which almost certainly has no chance of proceeding. "This move towards protectionism is not isolated, as can be evidenced by Brexit and other signs that people are concerned about how a globalised world is affecting them in a negative way. "Regardless of how you view free trade agreements, the various forms which they take shape, I would like to stress that the concept of free trade is overwhelmingly a positive one," he said. "For Australia and Asia, our relationship will move into its own, looking at the bilateral agreements that we have in place, which are robust and great opportunity for businesses to take advantage of the zero tariff in Asia," added Howard. The two-day conference beginning Thursday attracted over 200 participants including business leaders and decision makers. -- BERNAMA