KUALA LUMPUR: Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad described his bilateral meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as “very good” and declared Malaysia’s interest in technology transfer between the two countries.
The prime minister said Malaysia is especially interested in India’a online procurement system as well as a direct supply system which eliminates the need for a middleman.
“We can work together in many fields. In the field of technology, I was interested in how he decided to enforce cashless systems. Everybody in India has a bank account so they are no people in between.”
“When someone wants to procure something from the Indian government, they go online and the supplier also does this directly,” Dr Mahathir said.
He said the issue of trade was also discussed, with India invited to invest in India and vice versa.
“There is also a lot of room for exchanges in trade compared to before,” he said, adding that there were also plans for the countries to work together in terms of education.
This marks the first official meeting between the leaders as prime ministers; Dr Mahathir said that Modi had told him that they had met in the 1990s.
On his diplomatic visit to Japan, Dr Mahathir said he was going on the invitation of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
He said the visit was not an official one but a courtesy to expand on the good ties long enjoyed by the two nations.
Meanwhile Dr Mahathir reiterated Malaysia’s commitment to being a business-friendly country that would be fair to investors and foreign companies.
He said the mistakes of the Barisan Nasional government would not be repeated while adding that the new establishment would ensure that all investment and trade activities would follow the rule of law.
“We will right the mistakes of the previous government. We cannot be called inconsistent because we just formed the government three weeks ago.”
“Give us time and we guarantee we will not make the mistakes that the Barisan Nasional government made,” he said, after chairing the Pakatan Harapan presidential council meeting here today.
Dr Mahathir was responding to questions on the government’s move to scrap the Kuala Lumpur - Singapore High Speed Rail (HSR) and the MRT Line 3 projects on Wednesday, which some had viewed as being detrimental to foreign investment.
“The government wants to make the country a business-friendly destination, regardless of whether they are local or foreign investors. We will treat them fairly.”
“If there are problems, tell us. We will address them.” — Reports by Manirajan Ramsamy, Rohaniza Idris, Veena Babulal and Mohd Nasaruddin Parzi