Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad (Photo: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said in aninterview granted to the Vietnamese press during his ongoing visit to Vietnamthat Malaysia looks forward to enhancing the strategic partnership with Vietnamin a tangible way so that both countries will benefit.
The PMnoted that Vietnam has changed a lot, becoming more active and much greatereffective than when he visited the last time in 1998.
“And interms of economic growth, you have done extremely well, growing up to 7 percentper year,” Mahathir said, adding that he thought Vietnam has made much progresscompared with other ASEAN countries and may overstep Malaysia.
On the Malaysia-Vietnam strategic partnership,the Malaysian PM said the two countries already have 33 partnership agreements,but they need to focus on various areas where each has got its own strength.
He notedthat Vietnam certainly has a bigger population thanMalaysia, and big population means big market.
“Although the per capita income is not highbut we have noticed that big population with people hardworking, skillful, willcontribute very much to the growth of the economy,” he said, noting that forMalaysia, to have a partner with a big population is important because it is atrading nation and the bigger the market, the bigger the opportunity to tradeand also to invest.
Remarking thatMalaysian companies have been very active in Vietnam, PM Mahathir said he believesthat in the future there will be more investment in Vietnam.
“So we lookforward to enhancing the strategic partnership in a very tangible way so thatboth countries will benefit,” he said.
He pointed to agriculture as a potentialarea. Malaysia is buying rice and a number of vegetable products from Vietnam,and is looking to importing more agricultural products, he said, adding that Malaysia is alsointerested in investing in agricultural sector in Vietnam so that the countrycan obtain regular supply from Vietnam.
Asked about what Malaysia and Vietnam coulddo together to contribute to maintaining peace and security in the region aswell as strengthening ASEAN’s centrality, PM Mahathir said what happens in theEast Sea affect both countries, and the movement of vessels through the EastSea is important to both Malaysia and Vietnam. He underlined the need to avoidconfrontation, stressing that “if there are some problems, we need to sit downtogether, and discuss and try to solve the problem in a peaceful way.”
The PM emphasizedthat he hopes the sea will be free for navigation all the time.–VNA
VNA
