Malaysia, India to give political push on free trade agreement

E T B Sivapriyan
Kuala Lumpur, Jan 10 (PTI) Malaysia and India will
give a "political push" to their negotiations on a bilateral
free trade agreement during the New Delhi visit of Premier
Mohd Najib Tun Razak aiming to conclude the pact soon.
Minister of International Trade and Industry Datuk
Mustapa Mohamed said the India-Malaysia Comprehensive Economic
Cooperation Agreement will be one of the highlights of Razak's
visit to New Delhi beginning January 19.
Razak will hold bilateral talks with Indian Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh on January 20.
"We are looking forward to the visit of our Prime
Minister to India. India is a very important country to us and
is an important trading partner. The free trade agreement will
be one of the highlights of the bilateral talks (with Prime
Minister Manmohan SIngh) during the visit.
The two leaders will give directions on the
negotiations. That will provide a good boost to the
negotiations," he told visiting Indian journalists here.
A senior ministry official Dr Rebecca Fatima Sta
Maria, Deputy Secretary General (Trade), Ministry of
International Trade and Industry said the two leaders will
"give a political push to the negotiations and MoUs in various
sector. We hope to conclude the bilateral trade agreement by
the end of 2010."
Mustapa said officials of the two countries would sit
down this month end to discuss the progress made on the pact
and also the ways to concluding it.

Asked why the signing of the pact is being delayed,
Mustapa said Malaysia and India decided to first implement the
India-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement and then concentrate on a
bilateral treaty.
"ASEAN-India Free Trade Agreement was our first
priority. Since it has come into effect from January 1, 2010
we will now begin our negotiations again by this month end.
When we sit in January, we will take stock of the status of
the negotiations and how far we have made progress," he said,
adding that discussions are not that easy.
Asked whether the two countries have set any deadline
for concluding the agreement, he said though there are no
deadlines set Malaysia hopes that the agreement would be
concluded by the end of this year.
Mustapa said Malaysia and India would sign a number of
MoUs and agreements during Razak's India visit in the fields
of education, construction and trade.
Razak would also meet top business leaders in New
Delhi and Chennai and will invite Indian investments in
Malaysia. He will also attend the CII Partnership Summit in
Chennai on January 22.
He said, small medium enterprises in the fields of
engineering, bio-technology and information technology from
India should come forward to invest in Malaysia.
"We have big Indian companies like Tata, Reliance and
Infosys investing in Malaysia. But we want the smaller ones
also to come and invest in Malaysia. India has lots of
strength in many fields like engineering, bio-technology,
information technology and etc...," he said. PTI ETB
ANU