Kl, Seoul To Promote Bilateral Industrial Cooperation

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 27 (Bernama) -- Malaysia and South Korea have reaffirmed the importance for both countries to draw on bilateral, regional and global efforts to resist protectionism and keep international markets open to promote bilateral industrial cooperation. In a statement Mondaym, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) said both nations also recognised the need to promote the cooperation in a more structured way and it was decided that a joint committee be set up to develop a roadmap for this purpose. MITI said the agenda was agreed upon during a meeting between Minister of International Trade and Industry Mustapa Mohamed and South Korea's Minister of Knowledge Economy, Hong Sukwoo, held in Putrajaya Monday. "The proposed committee will be co-chaired by the senior director of Sectoral Policy and Investment Affairs of MITI and the director-general for Emerging Economies Cooperation of South Korea's Ministry of Knowledge Economy. "It will convene its first meeting in the first half of 2012," it said. MITI said Mustapa and Hong also discussed bilateral trade and investment and welcomed the growth in trade volume between the two countries. "They also discussed issues raised by South Korean investors in Malaysia including the structure for industrial and feed-in tariffs for electricity. "Both ministers noted that further discussion at the officials' level on the proposed free trade agreement between the two countries will be held in March 2012," it said. In 2011, South Korea was Malaysia's 8th largest trading partner with trade valued at RM48.99 billion. Exports from Malaysia grew by 6.1 per cent and amounted to RM25.82 billion, while imports totalled RM23.18 billion. -- BERNAMA