Malaysia-China relations to continue on mutual benefit
I see China has some advantage and things that we can learn from, including technology, while at the same time, our strategic location has given us a lot of advantage with China. Malaysia will continue to be friendly to everyone and most importantly, what role can we play, being a small country. Yeo Bee Yin, Minister of Energy, Technology, Science, Climate Change & Environment
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia would continue to have good relations with China as both countries have the potential to collaborate in various sectors that would mutually benefit each other.
Minister of Energy, Technology, Science, Climate Change & Environment, Yeo Bee Yin, said this does not mean that Malaysia would rely on China but it would instead look at the advantages it can gain from and provide to the collaboration.
“I see China has some advantage and things that we can learn from, including technology, while at the same time, our strategic location has given us a lot of advantage with China. Malaysia will continue to be friendly to everyone and most importantly, what role can we play, being a small country,” she told Bernama after delivering her keynote address at the forum on South-South Cooperation In The New Asian Era at Universiti Malaya yesterday.
Yeo said as Malaysia has a limited market, it is important to work together with technology leaders such as China who are advanced in the artificial intelligence and renewable energy sectors.
“We need to transform our businesses to think ahead about technology because this is what creates wealth, not just labour and capital,” said Yeo.
She also urged small and medium businesses (SMEs) to invest more in research and development (R&D) to grow their knowledge and enable them to push up the value chain.
“What the ministry is currently planning to do to help catalyse knowledge growth is that we will have an inventory of the scientific equipment that we have and the data that we can share.
“We plan to open source some of the data that we have in the government, as well as the scientific equipment, to outsiders including to the private sector mainly the SMEs for them to use at a minimum price,” she said.
Earlier in her keynote address, Yeo expressed hope the collaboration with China would see more technology commercial is at ion, academic collaboration and mutual investment between Malaysia and China in a win-win environment. — Bernama