BUSAN, Korea: SOUTH Korea has agreed to enhance collaboration between its small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with their Malaysian counterparts.
Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said he had made the request to the South Korean government and it had agreed to help encourage the collaboration.
“They are also interested in helping our small companies,”
he said at the end of the two-
day Asean-Republic of Korea Commemorative Summit here yesterday.
Dr Mahathir said the Malaysian government would help identify South Korean SMEs that possessed the relevant technologies and could work with Malaysian companies.
“Take the agriculture sector, for example. South Korea has the technology that even if you work on an acre of land, you can make money,” he said.
Earlier, the prime minister said at the summit he was shown Korean technology which enabled strawberries to be grown indoors.
“The strawberries are grown without sunlight and only with artificial light but yet they taste sweet,” he said, adding that the government had to send Malaysians over to study the technology from the South Koreans.
“We also have some of our own technology like growing plants indoors and watering them with mist.”
Dr Mahathir said the Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Ministry had placed plants in his house that were watered by a time-controlled mist release mechanism.
“So we also have the technology and are not far behind.”
The prime minister did not hide his admiration for the South Korea’s advancement in technology.
He said he was impressed by their achievement in aerospace and train technologies.
“Their technology is very far advanced and used mainly to improve life.”
Dr Mahathir said the summit, the third of its kind organised by South Korea since 2009, had been very useful, especially for Malaysia.
“We see great possibilities in working together with the South Koreans and their companies,” he said.
South Korea ranked as the world’s most innovative economy under Bloomberg’s Annual Innovation Index 2019, and Malaysia seeks to benefit from its experience.
South Korea’s involvement in Kuala Lumpur’s Look East Policy since 1982 has remained a significant feature of Malaysia’s development.
Under the renewed Look East Policy 2.0 (LEP 2.0), Malaysia is looking forward to tap into South Korea’s strength in advanced technology and innovation that include new industries, artificial intelligence, digital economy, robotic, as well as smart manufacturing and the aerospace industry.
Dr Mahathir, who is accompanied by his wife Tun Dr Siti Hasmah Mohd Ali, will leave for Seoul today for a two-day official visit, his first since becoming Malaysia’s seventh prime minister.