By NNN-Bernama,
Kuala Lumpur : Malaysia will soon sign a framework agreement with the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) to strengthen co-operation as a prelude to a proposed Free Trade Agreement (FTA), says International Trade and Industry Minister Mustapa Mohamed.
The framework agreement has been completed and both parties are waiting to sign it, he said after a presentation on investments in the manufacturing and services sectors in 2010 at the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA) annual conference here Tuesday.
“We’ve agreed mutually. This agreement is a pre-cursor to the FTA. It will cover co-operation on a broad range of sectors. After signing, we’ll go for the details,” he said.
The GCC countries are Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Oman
and Qatar.
The agreement is one of the aspects of Malaysia’s liberalisation moves, he said in reply to a question on what are the other sectors the government intended to liberalise.
The government has eased Foreign Investment Committee guidelines, liberalised 27 services sub-sectors and corporatised MIDA as part of the liberalisation exercise.
“GCC countries are a big market with strong purchasing power, hence opportunities for co-operation are vast,” said Mustapa, adding that many Malaysians had made their presence felt in these countries.
Meanwhile, MIDA director-general Jalilah Baba said the government investment promotion agency aimed to achieve between 50 billion and 55 billion Ringgit (one USD = about 3.05 Ringgit) in investments in the manufacturing sector this year.
Malaysia attracted significantly higher levels of investments in the manufacturing sector last year, up 44.8 per cent with 910 projects involving RM47.2 billion approved investments.
She said electrical and electronic industry would continue to be the manufacturing sector’s key driver. “MIDA is optimistic of achieving the target as we’ve surpassed last year’s
RM40 billion target,” she said.
Jalilah also said Malaysia was in the right position to attract green technology companies especially solar companies. She said MIDA was talking to few solar companies from the United States, Germany and China.
“About seven companies — three from the US and two each from Germany and China — are exploring investment prospects,” she said on the sidelines of the conference.
Jalilah said total investments from the seven companies would be more than RM5 billion, with over RM800 million investment from each company. Last year, US-based Twin Creeks Technologies Incorporated invested RM1 billion and Concrete Gold RM100 million in Malaysia’s solar sector.