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...

DHAKA 13 Jan. – Malaysia dan Bangladesh sepakat untuk meneruskan rundingan Perjanjian Perdagangan Bebas (FTA) yang tertangguh sejak lima tahun lalu dalam usaha meningkat hubungan dagangan antara kedua-dua negara. Kesepakatan itu dicapai oleh Menteri Perdagangan Antarabangsa dan Industri, Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed dalam pertemuan beliau dengan Menteri Perdagangan Bangladesh, Tofail Ahmed. Dalam pertemuan itu, Mustapa yang dalam misi pelaburan dan perdagangan ke negara ini turut disertai oleh Pesuruhjaya Tinggi Malaysia ke Bangladesh, Norlin Othman dan Timbalan Ketua Pegawai Eksekutif Matrade, Datuk Dzulkifli Mahmud. Mustapa berkata, kedua-dua belah pihak bersetuju supaya suruhanjaya bersama kedua-dua negara mengadakan perbincangan lanjut mengenai perkara tersebut di Kuala Lumpur pada Mac ini. “Kita telah memulakan rundingan lima tahun lalu berhubung kemungkinan mengadakan FTA antara Bangladesh dan Malaysia, namun tidak banyak kemajuan sejak beberapa tahun...

NEW DELHI, Jan 16 (Bernama) — Malaysia is hopeful that negotiations for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) can be concluded by year-end, International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed said. “It is a crucial year for Malaysia as we hold the chairmanship of Asean in 2015 and our target is to conclude the RCEP negotiations,” he said. However, there are challenges in achieving it as it involved 16 countries, he said. “Having said that, we recognise there are challenges. Even bilateral negotiations sometimes take time to conclude and here we are negotiating with 16 countries of different level of economy development,” he said during a press conference here on Thursday. RCEP is a proposed free trade agreement (FTA), which involves 10-member countries of Asean and six other nations namely Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand. The negotiations for RCEP, which involves 3 billion people and a combined Gross...

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 10 (Bernama) — The plunge in global oil prices will not impact the implementation of ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), said Deputy Minister of International Trade and Industry, Datuk Ir Hamim Samuri. He said plans for ASEAN to declare itself as a single economic community were moving ahead with speed. “We are convinced that even the global slump in oil prices will not have an adverse effect towards the realisation of the AEC,” he said at Affin Hwang Capital Conference Series 2015 here today. He was one of the speakers at the conference. Hamim said Malaysia, as chair of ASEAN for 2015, was focused on realising the AEC by year-end. “We aim for ASEAN member states to complete 95 per cent of the integration measures by that date,” he said. He said the potentials for ASEAN were enormous and if combined with the conclusion of negotiations for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the region’s future economic growth would be...