Cairo, Jan 23 (Bernama) -- Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib
Tun Razak said Wednesday that Eygpt Petroleum Company was keen to collaborate
with Petronas to discover oil and gas fields in Africa.
He said the interest was expressed by Egyptian Prime
Minister Dr Hesham Mohamed Qandil during a meeting between both leaders here
today.
Najib said the proposal would be forwarded to Petronas for
further action.
The Prime Minister was speaking to reporters on the last day
of his three-day visit to Eygpt before departing for Davos, Switzerland, to
attend the World Economic Forum.
"Petronas is held in high esteem here as a very
successful company which should be emulated," he said, adding that there
was abundant opportunities for the national oil corporation to explore oil and
gas onshore or offshore Egypt.
"They (Egypt) are also interested to get Proton to
collaborate with a local government-linked company to assembly cars here.
"Two economic zones were mentioned around the Suez
Canal where Malaysian companies could come in and invest," he added.
Najib said the time was opportune for Malaysian companies to
explore business and investment opportunities in Egypt as the government was
currently restructuring its economy.
The Prime Minister said the balance of trade between
Malaysia and Egypt was in Malaysia's favour.
Exports to Egypt amounted to US$1 billion (RM3.1 billion)
between January and November last year while imports to Malaysia during that
period totalled US$176.1 million (RM544.1 million).
He said one way to correct the imbalance was for Malaysia to
import cotton from Egypt which has been described as one of the best in the
world.
Meanwhile, Malaysia and Egypt signed a Comprehensive
Economic Cooperation Agreement with the main objective of having a framework
for increasing two-way cooperation in economic and technical sectors and, to
step up investments in each other's country.
The agreement was inked by Foreign Minister Datuk Seri
Anifah Amman, who signed on behalf of Malaysia, and Egyptian Minister of
Manufacture and Commercial Hate Sale, witnessed by Najib and Hesham.
The agreement also covers trade and investment,
construction, manufacturing, financial services, education, small-and-medium
enterprises, hall industry, wholesale and retail, transport, information
technology and communications, broadcasting and multimedia, agriculture and
agro-food, manpower, mineral resources, customs facilitation initiatives and
trade barriers.
Najib also thanked the Egyptian government, under the
leadership of President Mohamed Morsi, for the assistance rendered to
facilitate his successful trip to Gaza on Tuesday.
-- BERNAMA
No comments:
Post a Comment