Malaysia, Thailand committed to achieve bilateral trade of US$30 bln by 2025

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob, who is on a three-day official visit to Thailand, said he and his Thai counterpart Prayuth Chan o-cha both hoped that the third ministerial-level Joint Trade Committee (JTC) meeting could be held as soon as possible.

"We also agreed to explore new investment opportunities on both sides.

"Thai investors can explore new investment sectors in Malaysia such as the digital economy, green economy and circular economy, while Malaysian investors can participate in the Bio-Circular-Green (BCG) economic model and other new sectors such as vaccine research and development, electric and smart vehicles, automation and robotics in Thailand," he told a joint media conference at the Government House here.

Thailand remains as Malaysia's sixth biggest trading partner in the world and the second largest in ASEAN. Malaysia is Thailand's fourth largest trading partner in the world.

Two-way trade between Malaysia and Thailand increased by 23 per cent to RM97.97 billion last year from RM79.63 billion in 2020.

Earlier, the two leaders held a restricted meeting at the Government House.

The Malaysian premier said he and Prayuth also reiterated their commitment to strengthen Malaysia-Thailand cooperation under the Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle (IMT-GT) framework, especially in the Physical Connectivity Projects implementation and for mutual benefits in the agriculture and agro-based industry, tourism as well as halal products and services to realise the IMT-GT Vision 2036.

In addition, he said, they both agreed to continue the existing two-way mechanism, including the Annual Consultation and two meetings at the ministerial level, namely the Thailand-Malaysia Joint Commission for Bilateral Cooperation and the Thailand-Malaysia Committee on Joint Development Strategy for Border Areas meetings.

Meanwhile, Ismail Sabri proposed the control of rubber pricing among International Tripartite Rubber Council members Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand to benefit member countries.

"Hopefully it will give mutual benefits for our rubber smallholders," he said.