Malaysia dan European Free Trade Association (EFTA) hari ini bersetuju untuk memulakan rundingan perjanjian perdagangan bebas. Rundingan ini hanya akan dimulakan pada tarikh yang dipersetujui oleh Malaysia dan EFTA kelak. Perjanjian ini dijangka akan memudahkan promosi perdagangan, pelaburan dan kerjasama ekonomi di kalangan negara-negara anggota. EFTA terdiri daripada Switzerland, Norway, Iceland dan Liechtenstein. Malaysia sedang berunding dengan Kesatuan Eropah bagi memuktamadkan perjanjian perdagangan bebas. Perjanjian yang serupa dengan EFTA ini akan meluaskan rangkaian perdagangan berkeutamaan Malaysia ke seluruh Eropah. Pengumuman hari ini telah dibuat di Kuala Lumpur oleh Dato’ Seri Mustapa Mohamed, Menteri Perdagangan Antarabangsa dan Industri dan Johann N. Schneider Ammann, Menteri Hal Ehwal Ekonomi Switzerland yang mewakili EFTA. Kedua-dua Menteri turut menyaksikan majlis menandatangani skop perjanjian perdagangan bebas yang bakal diliputi di dalam perjanjian...

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 11 (Bernama) — Malaysia and Pakistan will review the free trade agreement (FTA) between both countries by month-end, says International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed. The trade balance is currently in favour of Malaysia.“We export a lot to them and don’t seem be importing much in turn. So, they are asking us to address this trade imbalance,” he told reporters after attending a networking session with private sector agencies in conjunction with the Chinese New Year celebration. “We are always looking at ways of ensuring fair trade with everyone. But there are things we can do, and others we cannot,” he said. Mustapa said a team from Islamabad would be here to discuss the FTA over two days . The FTA between Pakistan and Malaysia was signed in Kuala Lumpur in November 2007 — the first bilateral agreement between two member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Bilateral trade between Pakistan and Malaysia in 2012...

Apec’s 25th anniversary is a good time to assess both the challenges and the opportunities faced by the organisation.

 

TWENTY-ONE leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Coopera-tion (Apec) economies meet in Beijing next week.

It will mark the organisation’s 25th anniversary.

So what has Apec got to show the world besides growing from 12-member economies in 1989 to 21 today?

How effective has it been in driving trade and investment?

What can these high-level meetings actually do to improve the global economy?

If one asks whether Apec’s main goal – easing the barriers to doing business in the region – has been achieved, the answer has to be yes. Here’s why.

To be sure, it’s had a head start. First, it accounts for 40% of the world’s population (2.8 billion people), 47% of global trade and 54% of the world’s real Gross Domestic Product in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms.

Has it succeeded in easing tariff barriers? Again, yes.

When Apec was established in...

BEIJING, Nov 8 (Bernama) — Malaysia has expressed support for China’s initiatives to advance the process of taking concrete actions towards the realisation of the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) in a comprehensive and systematic manner. As a middle-income economy, Malaysia has enjoyed the benefits brought about by APEC initiatives in addressing the middle-income trap and pushing economies to achieve higher income status, said International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed. The FTAAP would provide an open market to the nations within the APEC region, including small countries like Malaysia, which has benefited from its technical assistance and capacity building programmes, as well as sharing of best practices among economies, he said. “It is good for our country’s exports and imports, although there will be some losers in the short term, but it will increase the competitiveness in our country and bring long-term benefits,” he said,...

Minister of International Trade and Industry, YB Dato’ Sri Mustapa Mohamed attended the 26th APEC Ministerial Meeting held in Beijing today.  Ministers discussed APEC’s achievements in the past 25 years, including the challenges and opportunities for regional economic cooperation in the coming years. Minister Mustapa expressed Malaysia’s support for China’s initiatives to advance the process to undertake concrete actions towards the realisation of the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) in a comprehensive and systematic manner.  In Qingdao earlier in May, Trade Ministers agreed that APEC would remain as a non-binding, voluntary forum and provide intellectual inputs into the FTAAP process.  They also agreed that FTAAP when agreed, will be pursued outside of APEC. FTAAP is envisaged to be a comprehensive FTA that is built on existing and on-going FTAs in the region such as the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) and Regional Comprehensive Economic...