00:00Mr. Shri, can we ask about the MOU of China you mentioned in Paribas yesterday?
00:04Do you just know what issues that China wants to address only in this event?
00:09Yeah, so during the meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Premier Li Chang together with the Prime Minister
00:15and I was present with Mike Kanterpan, Minister of Commerce, Wang Yi.
00:20So we discussed about some of the concerns they have on art, right?
00:26Because they don't want to be in a position where we give preferential treatment to the U.S.
00:36So we gave our explanation during the meeting in KL and we also agreed to meet again in Beijing.
00:42And we sent our team in Beijing last week and we explained about the wordings,
00:50the implication of art to China and they are satisfied.
00:54However, they are saying that they also want to strengthen the collaboration on trade and investment with Malaysia.
01:04So they proposed the idea of MOU.
01:06To be fair, even in Kuala Lumpur, they already talked about that possibility.
01:11But in China and Beijing, they talked about it in greater detail about their commitment to push for this MOU.
01:20The details of the MOU is very preliminary, but basically the parameters is to look at how Malaysia and China can improve
01:29and also look at strategic sectors that they feel Malaysia can also support Chinese companies to play a role here in Malaysia and of course ASEAN.
01:49So it's still very preliminary, but as I mentioned in Parliament yesterday, it was not a statement where they don't want to work with us.
02:02In fact, it's a statement that they feel that they want to work closer with us and they want it to be more tangible.
02:09Of course, for them it's slightly different.
02:12We have FTA as well, so there are agreements under the free trade agreement for RCEP as well as for the ASEAN-China.
02:21So we are already comprehensive strategic partners with China, right?
02:25Yeah, and also we upgraded US to comprehensive partnership.
02:29Yeah, so this MOU will further elevate and also what industry will it cover?
02:33It's still very preliminary.
02:34Like I said, we just had one meeting so far, so we will update accordingly.
02:39Look back at your year as in charge of the economic cluster of ASEAN with the China Gulf ASEAN Summit with the 3.0 upgrade,
02:52the first RCEP Summit since the signing, and tackling the tariff issue.
02:58How do you see your year as navigating all these things, the positives and the negatives and the challenges and the achievements?
03:07Yeah, well, it's been a challenging year.
03:13To say it's an exciting year is an understatement.
03:17But at the same time, we are lucky, I mean, personally, I'm also lucky to have a team,
03:22a strong team to support me and the ministry and the government to navigate these challenges on the issue of art,
03:30which is a very important agreement that we have signed with the US,
03:34important in the sense that it protects our market access, but also protects the livelihoods of millions of Malaysians.
03:42I think we have, I mean, our conscience is clear.
03:44We think we did the best we can.
03:46But having said that, we will continue to engage the US and continue to diversify to other markets
03:54and strengthen our companies themselves.
03:56So this is where the other challenge is to ensure that Malaysian companies remain competitive.
04:02As companies realign and redesign their supply chain, we do not want to be left out of their supply chain.
04:09And Malaysian companies who are provider to many of these big companies, provider meaning part of their supply chain,
04:15if we are not competitive enough, we will be out of their supply chain.
04:19So that, I think, is the other challenge that people don't speak about, but it is equally important as the art itself.
04:27And how important was it to wrap up the China-Acea Free Great Agreement upgrade this year,
04:32especially in the context of everything else that's happening?
04:35Yeah, well, that happened late last year when we took over the championship.
04:41On 1st of January, we already had the 18 priority economy deliverables.
04:45That's one of them.
04:46It was so important to complete that ASEAN-China FD8 upgrade 3.0 protocol
04:51because China is the largest trading partner for ASEAN.
04:57And now ASEAN is also the largest trading partner for China.
05:00So we need to ensure that a bit more balanced trade for ASEAN with China.
05:08So we wanted more market access.
05:09We're talking about for ASEAN, we wanted more better market access to China.
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