According to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob, China has moved up to become Malaysia’s largest trading partner, accounting for 18.6 percent of total trade last year and the seventy-one manufacturing projects involving the Chinese is expected to create 10,000 jobs.

Malaysia’s exports to China in the same year had expanded by 11.1 percent to RM 160 billion and China was also Malaysia’s biggest import source, accounting for 21.5 percent of total imports.

Similarly, China has become Malaysia’s top investor with investments amounting to about RM18 billion last year and this ranking has been maintained for the past five years.

However, Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri said while Malaysia-China investment and bilateral trade were growing steadily there were still domains of untapped economic potential, including the digital economy and in the areas of sustainable development and the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Under the recently tabled 12th Malaysia Plan, sustainability of energy resources has been identified as one of the key factors in the dimension of economic empowerment.

The Prime Minister said such areas have already become the cornerstone of China’s trade and economic policies for many years, embodied in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and China’s 14th Five-Year Plan.

-THE MALAYSIA VOICE