THE cooperation between Asean member countries and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations will open more opportunities for bilateral trade and investment between the two blocs.

Investment, Trade and Industry Minister Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz said this will be made possible through the existing expertise sharing and export network between Malaysian companies and GCC, specifically in Saudi Arabia.

“Malaysian companies that will cooperate with local companies in Saudi Arabia can also export their expertise and capital to assist the investments in the kingdom.

“This shows that GCC and Asean will engage in two-way trade and investment, not just one-way,” he told the Malaysian media after attending a meet-and-greet session with Malaysian diaspora in Saudi Arabia yesterday.

Tengku Zafrul also announced that Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, in his working visit in conjunction with the Asean-GCC Summit, will also have a meeting with the biggest player in the oil and gas industry in Saudi Arabia, namely Saudi Aramco, and Public Investment Fund, the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, to broaden bilateral investments.

“Investments from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), for example, has reached about US$6.6 billion (RM31.5 billion), as announced by the prime minister who is also finance minister,” said Tengku Zafrul.

In terms of investment, the UAE is presently the largest West Asia investor in Malaysia and is the second biggest among the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation countries.

Investments worth RM6.19 billion, comprising 44 manufacturing projects from the UAE were approved as of June 2023, with the potential to generate 4,534 job opportunities.

Asean is the fifth largest economic bloc in the world with a population of 680 million and gross domestic product size of US$3.7 trillion. – Bernama, October 21, 2023.