India hopes to expand scope of bilateral trade with Malaysia
BERNAMA
September 05, 2005
India Hopes To Expand Scope Of Bilateral Trade With Malaysia
KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 5 (Bernama) — India hopes to expand the scope and coverage of trade with Malaysia once a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) between Malaysia and India is completed.
India’s Minister of State for External Affairs, E. Ahamed, is expected to comment on the progress of the Indo-Malaysia Joint Study Group’s (JSG) report on the feasibility of the CECA when he meets Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar and his deputy Joseph Salang during a three-day visit which begins in Johor, Monday.
India’s Deputy High Commissioner Sanjay Panda told Bernama today that the report was on the fast track and was expected to be finalised by the drafting committee in Kuala Lumpur within the next two weeks.
In a recent interview with Bernama, India’s Minister of Commerce and Industry Kamal Nath had said that the JSG had carried out the feasibility study not just on the area of trade in goods but also services.
The group studied ICT, engineering and medical, healthcare and diagnostic services as well as education, biotechnology, advertising, financial, travel and transport, architectural and other services.
If the feasibility of the CECA is established, Kamal said, both countries had agreed to develop a Framework Agreement for consideration and announcement by the leaders, possibly by the end of this year.
Indian companies are looking at investments into Malaysia’s services sector, according to the Minister.
"We are moving ahead and I do see, in both our countries, increasingly substantial cross-investments," Kamal said.
"We hope to move this to a higher plane by the next quarter."
On his visit to New Delhi last December, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi called for greater economic and trade cooperation between Malaysia and India, culminating in some form of free trade agreement.
During his visit, the Prime Minister had noted that trade between the two countries was dominated by primary products.
He called for more focus on service sectors including information communications technology (ICT), machinery and engineering and pharmaceuticals.
India signed a CECA in June with Singapore, its largest trading partner in ASEAN.
Malaysia is India’s second largest trading partner in the region, with US$4.5 billion in bilateral trade last year.
Meanwhile, Kamal noted that India’s Minister of Communication and Information Technology Dayanidhi Maran and his Malaysian counterpart, Minister of Energy, Water and Communications, Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik, who met in January this year, had agreed that their Joint Working Group should meet more regularly to formulate concrete proposals and specific steps for enhancing collaboration in the ICT sector.
Kamal said Malaysia was an important investor in India and 58 percent of its Foreign Direct Investments since January 2000 have been in the construction sector.
"Malaysia, with its world-class infrastructure facilities, has tremendous potential to bring in the technology and capital into infrastructure development in India, in particular the road construction segment," he said.
