By NNN-Bernama,
Kuala Lumpur : Malaysia and India are on track to formalising a bilateral trade liberalisation pact under the Malaysia-India Comprehensive Economic Co-operation Agreement (CECA) with the third round of the CECA negotiations being held here this week.
The CECA is expected to further boost trade and investment between the two countries. India was Malaysia’s 12th largest trading partner last year and two-way bilteral trade reached 10.52 billion USD in 2008 before falling to 7.06 billion USD last year as the global economic downturn took its toll.
“I have no doubt that we will see trade between both countries return to, and then rapidly exceed, the 2008 figure,” Malaysia’s International Trade and Industry Minister, Mustapa Mohamed, said in a statement here as the three-day third round of talks began Monday.
Mustapa said the ministry was encouraged by the level of interest within the corporate sectors in India and Malaysia and looked forward to greater investment flows from India.
“I would like to see existing and new Indian companies expand their operations in Malaysia, particularly small and medium enterprises (SMEs),” he added.
Determined to ensure that negotiations were successful, Mustapa met with his Indian counterpart, Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma, in India recently to review progress on the CECA.
“Sharma and I have now agreed on a process which should ensure we meet this challenging deadline. The breadth of the agreement, covering services and investments, reflects the level of our ambition which I have characterised as ‘Asean Plus’,” Mustapa explained.
Malaysia, through its engagement in the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean), signed the Asean-India Trade in Goods Agreement last October. The agreement was effective Jan 1 this year.
Malaysia has already ratified the India-Asean Free Trade Agreement, which will gradually remove tariffs on 70 per cent of traded items.
The CECA seeks to secure a higher level of commitment to trade relations between Malaysia and India.