Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak welcoming his Chinese counterpart, Wen Jiabao, with a firm handshake at the federal administrative capital in Putrajaya yesterday.
: Malaysia-China bilateral relations were raised to a higher level with the inking of several agreements and memorandums of understanding here yesterday.
The signing ceremony that marked another step towards greater cooperation and joint investments in higher education, energy, infrastructure and communications, among others, was witnessed by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and his Chinese counterpart, Wen Jiabao.
Wen arrived on Wednesday for a twoday visit, accompanied by a team of 118 delegates, including four ministers.
A milestone was the agreement on the setting up of a Bank Negara Malaysia representative office in Beijing. This would facilitate trade settlement in local currency.
Najib said Kuala Lumpur and Beijing felt the agreement to settle trade in local currency was a huge step forward in bilateral trade. Malaysia is China’s biggest trading partner in Southeast Asia.
Another agreement was signed between China’s Huadian Engineering and Malaysia’s Janakuasa Sdn Bhd on the construction of a coal-fired power plant. Janakuasa had previously been awarded the US$1.5 billion (RM4.48 billion) project in Vietnam, expected to be completed in 2015.
Also inked was a contract for the supply of network infrastructure and services between Malaysia’s DiGi Telecommunications and China’s ZTE Corp.
Smelter Asia Sdn Bhd, meanwhile, signed a pact to develop a smelter project with Aluminum Corp of China.
Speaking at a joint press conference, Najib also said Malaysia was appreciative of China’s commitment to import palm oil and palm oil products in big quantities.
China is the second largest buyer of Malaysian palm oil after India.
Noting the upward trend with 1.1 million tourist arrivals recorded last year, Najib said he and Wen agreed to the establishment of a centre of excellence for traditional Chinese medicine in Malaysia.
“The Chinese government is giving full support to this and will provide whatever possible assistance to ensure the success of this centre,” he said.
Najib, who is also finance minister, said the pacts signified the deep commitment of both countries in identifying new areas of economic collaboration, and in stimulating investments.
Trade between Malaysia and China grew at an average of 20 per cent annually in the past few years and hit about US$75 billion last year.
Najib and Wen expressed optimism that bilateral ties would broaden and continue to prosper.
Wen urged more Malaysian companies to invest in his country, the world’s second biggest economy with a population of more than 1.34 billion.
“The Chinese government hopes Malaysia will bring in more Chinese products.
“Chinese businessmen are also ready to increase their investments here, including in infrastructure development,” he said, adding that China was happy to be an importer of Malaysia’s frozen durian.
The two countries also agreed to an exchange of 100 students between them.
At the press conference, Najib also acknowledged Wen as a very close friend of Malaysia, adding that Kuala Lumpur had every confidence that given his strong leadership, China would continue to prosper and provide strong impetus to global economic growth.
“More importantly, we can look forward to many, many years of strong, deep and very friendly ties between the two countries,” he said.
Earlier, Wen arrived at Dataran Perdana in the Prime Minister’s Office complex and was met by Najib and Foreign Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman at 10am.
The two leaders inspected a Royal Malay Regiment guard of honour before heading for a closed-door meeting.
