By NNN-Bernama
New Delhi : After a one-year gap, Malaysia’s new High Commissioner to India has arrived here, with an agenda to synergise Malaysia-India bilateral ties and take them to a new height.
Tan Seng Sung, former deputy secretary-general (II) of the Foreign Affairs Ministry, who arrived here last week, will assume official duties after presenting his credentials to Indian President Prathiba Patil next month.
In outlining his priorities, Tan, with 30 years of diplomatic expertise and experience in foreign affairs, said he would work to energise Kuala Lumpur-New Delhi relations and take them to a new horizon.
“We need to look into enhancing two-way trade, political, cultural, tourism and education ties. I am confident we can move further in a stronger way.
“We also need to expose Malaysian small-and medium-scale entrepreneurs to India, They should not be deterred by the apparent high costs here. India is a good market,” he told Bernama in an interview.
Tan is also keen to promote Malaysia as an education hub by wooing Indian students to study in Malaysia where the cost was much cheaper and attract more Indian investments.
“We need to attract more Indian investments to Malaysia as there are not many big Indian companies in Malaysia now,” said Tan, who joined the foreign service in 1978.
Prior to his New Delhi posting, he was ambassador to Kazakhstan from 2002 to 2004, before returning to the Foreign Ministry as deputy secretary-general (II).
India-Malaysia bilateral trade, amounting to about RM7.3 billion in 2002-2003, surged three-fold to RM21.8 billion in 2006 and last year.
India’s exports to Malaysia stood at RM4.29 billion and imported RM17.5 billion worth of goods between 2006 and 2007.
On foreign direct investments, Malaysia ranked 23rd largest overall investor and the second largest investor from Asean, with a total inflow of RM472.3 million during the period between August 1991 to July last year.
Malaysian investments are mainly in liquefied petroleum gas, power plants, paging systems and highway construction.
Currently, there are over 10 Indian companies and 60 joint ventures operating in Malaysia.