00:00the launch of the ASEAN Investment Challenge 2025. On my count, gentlemen.
01:00Are you still in Penang today? No, we're chilled.
01:11Are you confident today? When are you likely that...
01:14It's likely that we'll be there in the end of April. But the key is actually to work through
01:20and understand how do you want to position the story of Malaysia. At the same time, there
01:26are a lot of no-regret moves that we should be doing. We should continue to explore and
01:30diversify our trade. That's why under this ASEAN framework, we need to work much stronger
01:35within ASEAN. Not only to coordinate the efforts that we need to do, but also to enable much
01:40stronger ASEAN trade. To look at partners that have been with us for a while, like EU
01:46and new partners such as Latin America, South America and so on, and see what else we can
01:50do with that. So sometimes you need a trigger, and I think this is a trigger for all of us
01:55to do that.
01:56To get a unified or a consensus among ASEAN member countries before you negotiate, isn't
02:02it going to be very difficult?
02:04I think it's important to recognise that ASEAN has differential in terms of level of development
02:10for each ASEAN country, and also have had different level of tariffs that have been
02:15applied. But the common thing that holds and binds us together is fundamentally an acceptance
02:21that free trade is a common goal that we all want to push. We all want to push for
02:26fair trade treatment along the way. So I think all of us will also hold to those principles.
02:32The unique country differential will be things that each will discuss, but we won't deviate
02:38from the fact that holding to open free trade mechanisms are important for us to talk about.
02:51Transcription by CastingWords
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