Malaysia

Recently, Ambassador Ouyang Yujing accepted an exclusive interview with The Sun, mainly answering questions from reporters on China-Malaysia economic and trade relations and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP). The newspaper published an article titled "China-Malaysia Economic and Trade Relations Will Be Closer" and reported the following on the content of the interview:

Ouyang Yujing, Chinese Ambassador to Malaysia, told The Sun that China is committed to working with Malaysia to strengthen cooperation in the post-epidemic period under the background of the normalization of global epidemic prevention and control. The two sides will continue to jointly build the “Belt and Road” with high quality, steadily promote the construction of large projects, explore cooperation in new business formats such as e-commerce, Internet economy, and digital economy, and continuously improve the level of economic and trade cooperation between the two countries.

China’s "14th Five-Year Plan" proposes to persist in implementing wider, wider and deeper opening-up, relying on China’s super-large market advantages, promote international cooperation, achieve mutual benefit and win-win results, and promote the joint construction of the “Belt and Road” initiative. Quality development promotes the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind.

Ambassador Ouyang said that China and Malaysia are good neighbors for the establishment of a thousand-year friendship and good partners in the joint construction of the “Belt and Road”. The two countries have always focused on in-depth and pragmatic cooperation in multiple fields, and the two sides have achieved fruitful cooperation in the areas of economic and trade cooperation parks, manufacturing, infrastructure, communications, and digital economy. A large number of flagship projects such as the "Two Countries Double Park" and the East Coast Railway are proceeding in an orderly manner.

In the field of economy and trade, China is willing to work with Malaysia to further expand the scale of bilateral trade, promote trade transformation and upgrading, and innovate and develop service trade. The two sides will have more opportunities to share the advantages brought about by multilateral trade, to share a more open system and platform, and to share the fruits of world-class events such as the China International Import Expo.

In the field of science and technology, China is willing to actively participate in Malaysia's "Digital Blueprint" plan, strengthen cooperation in the field of digital economy, improve the level of digital trade, and encourage and support more technology-intensive enterprises to invest in Malaysia.

Ambassador Ouyang said that the "Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement" (RCEP), the world's largest free trade agreement, was officially reached, which is of great significance to deepening regional economic integration and stabilizing the global economy.

China completed the RCEP domestic approval process on April 15, 2021. It is believed that the effective implementation of RCEP will effectively boost the confidence of all parties in economic growth, significantly enhance the level of economic integration in East Asia, and promote the integration of regional industrial chains, supply chains and value chains. The economic and trade cooperation between China and Malaysia will also be closer, to better achieve mutual benefit and win-win results, and to make greater contributions to promoting the common development and prosperity of the region.

Ambassador Ouyang stated that the bilateral trade between China and Malaysia achieved growth against the trend last year, reaching US$131.16 billion, a year-on-year increase of 5.7%. China has become Malaysia's largest trading partner for 12 consecutive years. Malaysia continues to maintain its status as the second largest trading partner with China among ASEAN countries. During the same period, China's new investment in Malaysia was nearly US$1 billion, a year-on-year increase of 22.6%. China has been the largest source of investment in the horse manufacturing industry for four consecutive years.

China will continue to encourage willing Chinese companies to invest in Malaysia, and also welcome Malaysian investors to invest in China. We are also willing to work with Malaysia to maintain the RCEP, WTO and other multilateral trading systems, and promote the construction of an open world economy.

Ambassador Ouyang said that China and Malaysia are geographically close, culturally similar, extensive people-to-people exchanges, and outstanding cooperation in the fields of culture, tourism, education, science and technology.

Since 2012, China has become Malaysia’s third largest source of tourists for eight consecutive years, second only to Singapore and Indonesia, and Malaysia’s largest source of tourists outside of ASEAN. In 2019, Malaysia ranked 8th among the countries of outbound tourism destinations for Chinese citizens. The number of Chinese tourists visiting Malaysia is approximately 3.11 million, accounting for 12% of foreign tourists visiting Malaysia. The total consumption of Chinese tourists in Malaysia is 15.3 billion MYR, accounting for 17.8% of foreign tourists' consumption in Malaysia, second only to Singapore. Both China and Malaysia attach great importance to the development of the tourism industry and believe that China-Malaysia tourism exchanges and cooperation will achieve further success after the epidemic.

Ambassador Ouyang said that Malaysia has advantages in the fields of information and communication, semiconductor packaging and testing, tropical agricultural production, and marine aquaculture technology. China has a large market demand in these areas. There are broad prospects for the two countries to strengthen technical and industrial cooperation in these areas. In the field of vocational education, both parties are in great need of vocational skilled talents, and more exchanges and cooperation can be carried out in the future. I look forward to continuing to promote China-Malaysia economic and trade cooperation to a higher level in a comprehensive and in-depth manner.