JAIPUR (Rajasthan), Jan 16 (Bernama) — International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed met Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and discussed the strong bilateral ties between the two nations. Among others, India requested Malaysia, which is the current chair of Asean, to take up a more proactive role in the negotiations for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) trade pact. Mustapa said Malaysia considered the conclusion of the RCEP negotiations as one of the deliverables during Putrajaya’s chairmanship of the 10-member grouping. There are ample political will to conclude the negotiations, he said during the 15-minutes meeting held on the sidelines of the Confederation of Indian Industry Partnership Summit 2015 here today. RCEP is a proposed free trade agreement, which involves the 10 members of Asean and six other nations namely Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand. The negotiations for RCEP,...

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...