Our economy and trade policies the same despite change in govt, says Dr M
BANGKOK: Malaysia has maintained its trade and economic policies and friendship with countries despite having witnessed its first change in government in 61 years, says Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
The prime minister said Malaysia looked forward to foreign investors, including those from Thailand, and was fine-tuning rules, regulations and laws to spur more investments into the country.
“Despite the change of government, the country’s approach in terms of economy, trade and friendship still remains the same. The existing policies are retained,” he said in his keynote address during a dialogue session with Thai corporate leaders here yesterday.
Dr Mahathir said that while the administration was new, it nevertheless maintained a businessfriendly policy and that the government would strive its best to accommodate investors’ needs.
“When people (investors) come to invest in Malaysia, the government will try to help as much as possible.
“Of course, there are rules, regulations and laws that have to be complied with. We are streamlining all these to facilitate more investments from foreign countries. We hope that the move (to streamline rules) will attract investors to come to Malaysia. The country has always welcomed foreign direct investments.”
Dr Mahathir said Malaysia, during its early years, had invited foreigners to come to the country with their capital investments and had adopted their technology and market knowledge.
“Since then, Malaysia has changed from being an agriculture-based country with some mining activities to an industrialised country producing industrial goods.
“However, that is far from satisfactory as we (Asians) are still importing from outside the region. The Asean region has a huge market and this needs to be explored. If possible, locally-produced ones. We should sit together and identify what we can produce within our countries then we can trade in greater volume and value each other better.”
Describing Asean as the second biggest market after China, Dr Mahathir said the Asean region’s 600 million population had potential, but its per capita income was low.
On Malaysia’s potential of forging stronger cooperation with its Thai counterparts, Dr Mahathir said that being neighbours, there should be active trade by both countries.
“We are close to each other with good roads, railway facilities and communication is easy, and we know each other well.
“When we want to do business, we prefer to do it with people whom we know well... with strangers, we are not sure (sometimes) what will happen.
“We must look at efforts to facilitate two-way trade,” he said.
Dr Mahathir gave the example of the 24-hour operations of Bukit Kayu Hitam Immigration, Customs, Quarantine and Security Complex and Sadao Customs, Immigration and Quarantine Complex, which he said would increase cross-border trade between the neighbouring countries.
Present during the dialogue were Foreign Affairs Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah, Economic Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Azmin Ali, International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Ignatius Darell Leiking and Thailand’s Joint Standing Committee on Commerce, Industry and Banking chairman Kalin Sarasin.