‘Malaysia supports India’s permanent membership in UN Security Council,’ says MEA

New Delhi (India), August 21 (ANI): The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Tuesday said that defence and security are important areas of relations between the two countries.

Malaysia also supports India’s bid for permanent membership of the UN Security Council, the MEA added.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim held extensive discussions on trade and entrepreneurship, defence and security, cultural exchanges, people-to-people ties as well as emerging areas such as digital technologies, semiconductors, renewable energy and sustainable development.

During a press conference, Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the East Jaideep Mazumdar said that Malaysia has expressed support for India’s application for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

He added, “Fintech startups, cross-border payment systems and UPI-based systems are the new drivers of our engagement with Malaysia and we are looking ahead.”“There have been more than 15 bilateral visits at the Ministerial or Deputy Ministerial level, which is reflected in the very broad scope of engagement that we have between India and Malaysia today and in the charts that we have outlined for the future relationship. Today, they had extensive discussions on trade and commerce, defence and security, cultural exchanges, people-to-people ties, emerging areas like digital technologies, semiconductors, renewable energy and sustainable development. We have very close people-to-people ties with Malaysia,” he said.

In a post on X, Malaysian spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal wrote, “India-Malaysia charting a new future with a comprehensive strategic partnership. Extensive talks between PM @narendramodi and PM @anwaribrahim of Malaysia to further intensify the multi-dimensional India-Malaysia relations. The leaders agreed to elevate India-Malaysia relations to a comprehensive strategic partnership. Discussions covered various areas of bilateral cooperation including trade, investment, defence, new technologies, cultural exchanges and people-to-people ties. The leaders also exchanged views on regional and global issues including cooperation in ASEAN and the Global South.” Mazumdar added that the Indian diaspora is the largest in the world.

“The Indian diaspora is the world’s third largest, numbering around 2.9 million, and the second largest PIO community, numbering around 2.75 billion. It is also home to a large number of skilled and unskilled workers and IT professionals from India who contribute to the Malaysian economy and its growth and development,” he said.

Mazumdar said the two leaders signed several important agreements during this time.

“Today, recruitment, employment and repatriation of workers is an important area. This is a very important memorandum of understanding as it paves the way for the welfare of Indian workers by ensuring their welfare and proper working conditions as well as repatriation,” he said.

Mazumdar added that both sides are working on this aspect.

“And this is something that both sides have been working on for some time now. And this will go a long way in not only securing the welfare of Indian workers but also opening up the whole field of employment in Malaysia that is open to foreign workers, to Indian workers,” he said.

Mazumdar added that agreements were signed in the areas of public administration, digital technologies, cultural cooperation and tourism promotion.

“Another MoU signed was on public administration and management reform. The third was on digital technologies, one on cultural cooperation, an agreement on tourism promotion,” he said.

He added that tourist traffic on the India-Malaysia route is growing.

“The tourism movement between India and Malaysia is growing rapidly. Up to one million Indian tourists are expected to come to Malaysia this year. The number of Malaysian tourists in India is also growing rapidly. Around 200,000 Malaysian tourists are coming to India. There are 220 flights per week between India and Malaysia and we are looking forward to increasing this number. From July 1, we have announced free e-visa for Malaysian tourists coming to India and Malaysia has similarly introduced visa-free regime for Indians for both tourism and business purposes since the end of last year. So based on all these data, we can expect the tourism movement between the two countries as well as business travel to grow rapidly which will also help our aviation sectors,” he said.

He added that agreements on Ayurveda, financial technology and sports have been signed.

“Another area of ​​cooperation that we identified and signed an MoU was on Ayurvedic and traditional medicine systems. There is an agreement between IFSCA and Labuan Financial Services on fintech and another MoU on promotion of sports and youth affairs,” he said.

He added that another agreement was signed on BEML and SMH rails for supply of rolling stock to Indian Railways.

“Both sides have a CEO forum which met yesterday and submitted a report to the two prime ministers. It is a very ambitious target in various areas of industry and investment between the two business entities. This has been coordinated by the CII from our side. A number of other agreements and arrangements were also made on the sidelines of the visit. One was for supply of rolling stock to Indian Railways, another between Invest India and Malaysian Indian Business Council and the third between Nascom and its counterpart PCom to bring the two IT chambers closer together. There is also a very large presence of Indian IT companies in Malaysia,” he said.

He also said several important events were announced during the visit to support Malaysia in its quest to ensure food security.

“We have announced that we will supply another 200,000 tonnes of non-basmati rice to Malaysia. A chair of Ayurveda will be established at Tunku Abdul Rahman University Malaysia and a chair of Thiruvalluvar will be established at the University of Malaya. A digital council will be set up to promote digital connectivity between India and Malaysia. A startup bridge has been set up to connect our startup ecosystems. India is offering 100 I-Tech seats in AI, cybersecurity and machine learning for Malaysian students,” Mazumdar said.

Mazumdar said Malaysia has announced its accession to the Big Cat Alliance.

“Malaysia has also announced its joining the Big Cat Alliance,” he said.

Both countries agree on this ambitious and modern agenda for bilateral relations, he said.

“Our bilateral trade is also booming. It has now reached $20 billion. Malaysia is our third largest trading partner in ASEAN. Both the prime ministers have actually tasked us to set up a task force which will look at implementing all the various areas of engagement that we have identified during this visit and submit a report within three months. So this is something that we will start working on today,” he said. (ANI)