Thai visit a success, says Muhyiddin

Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, has hailed his two-day official visit to Thailand, which ended Friday, a success in boosting bilateral relations and provide encouraging prospects of greater cooperation. Muhyiddin said the two governments were determined to see what were agreed between the two prime ministers (Datuk Seri Najib Razak and Yingluck Shinawatra) would be continued. "We hope there will be determination to implement whatever projects that were planned, especially those involving the border areas and northern Peninsular Malaysia, so that they will benefit the people," he said. He said this at a media briefing after a roundtable discussions with captains of the industry from Malaysia and Thailand here today. The peace process in southern Thailand was one of the topics in the discussions between Muhyiddin and Yingluck last night. Muhyiddin said Thailand was determined to see that an encouraging peace proces be achieved soon. He said Thailand has also shown keen interest on the 'halal' issues and the two countries had started negotiations on collaboration to raise the 'halal' standards. Muhyiddin hoped that the private sector would play a role to hasten the use of the 'halal' standards as the government could only act as facilitator. On the roundtable discussions, Myuhyiddin said the Thai companies were keen to expand and increase their investments in Malaysia. He said the representatives from Thailand had asked about the incentives, support given by the Malaysian government and also its policies in tourism, retail, property and several manufacturing sectors. "The feedback from Malaysia is that it is interested to see more foreign investments flowing into the country," he said. On behalf of the Malaysian companies, Muhyiddin said the banks were interested to expand their operations in Thailand and asked for support as well as for more liberal policies from the Thai government. He said Thailand Deputy Prime Minister Kittirat Na Ranong had explained that the liberalisation trend in the country's banking industry would take place in the next few years. Kittirat also explained that the Thai government was awaiting the approval from the country's Parliament in relation to the huge funding and budget for development involving railways, ports and highways, he said. This meant there were potentials for Malaysian companies that were involved in those sectors, he said, adding that Thailand had stated it would invest more than US$60 billion in infrastructure development.