Thai PM Visits Malaysia
Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin paid a two-day working visit to Malaysia to meet with the Malaysian King Yang di-Pertuan Agong Al-Sultan Abdullah and the Prime Minister of Malaysia to review the two countries' bilateral relations and explore new cooperation. In a written statement from the Malaysian Ministry of Foreign Affairs received in Kuala Lumpur, Thursday, the bilateral meeting between Prime Minister (PM) Srettha and PM Anwar Ibrahim will explore new areas of cooperation such as cyber security, green and digital economy. Anwar Ibrahim and Srettha Thavisin agreed to form a task force that will focus on strengthening bilateral cooperation in the agriculture, tourism, security, as well as trade and business sectors, including the halal product sector.
Anwar said the task force had to complete its initial tasks within one month, submit a report to him and the Thai PM before the two government leaders met again. He also said that the two of them would often meet on a number of multilateral occasions in the future, some of which are the ASEAN-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Summit in Riyadh next week, as well as mid-December 2023 in Japan to attend the ASEAN-Japan Summit. Meanwhile, Srettha said relations between the two countries were very close and the task force was the best way for the two countries to move forward. In the discussion, he mentioned that one of the issues that was also discussed was national security which was a concern in northern Malaysia and southern Thailand.
They agreed to turn the border between the two countries into a trade zone, trying to bring prosperity to the region by increasing trade volumes. The two also agreed to increase trade volume by setting new targets for the two countries, including cooperation in expanding the market for halal products to the world, increasing the number of tourist visits from the two countries. They also discussed plans for car manufacturer Proton-Geely to set up an electric vehicle factory in Thailand. The Malaysian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that PM Srettha's working visit on 11-12 October would further strengthen the already established good relations between the two countries which are neighbors and close partners in ASEAN. In 2022, Thailand will become Malaysia's 7th largest trading partner in the world, and the 3rd largest among ASEAN members, with a total trade value reaching 122.03 billion Malaysian ringgit (27.75 billion US dollars) or around IDR 405.85 trillion. , an increase of 17.9 percent compared to 2021 which reached RM97.55 billion (23.54 billion US dollars) or around IDR 331.09 trillion.
Malaysia24
