Mustapa to lead trade missions to Germany, Netherlands and Belgium

Minister of International Trade and Industry, Mustapa Mohamed, will lead trade and investment missions to Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium beginning today till 0ct 20. 

In a statement, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) said, the missions will cover Hamburg in Germany, Amsterdam in the Netherlands as well as Brussels in Belgium.

"The missions are one of the government’s many efforts to strengthen Malaysia’s economic bilateral relations with these countries.

"The focus sectors during the missions are electric and electronics (automotive/automation parts), logistics, palm oil and oleo chemicals as well as development and application of industry 4.0 elements in the manufacturing sector,” it said.

MITI said a delegation of 37 people comprising 10 officials from the ministry and its agencies, as well as 27 businessmen from 14 organisations would participate in the mission.

”Mustapa will be engaged with various stakeholders and businesses including the chambers of commerce and industry as well as meeting industry captains from Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium to further promote Malaysia as their ideal trade and investment partner,” it said

The minister's schedule included business seminars in Hamburg and Amsterdam, roundtable meetings with companies, meetings with potential investors as well as visits to Sime Darby Unimills and Brainport Eindhoven high-technology campus in the Netherlands, it said.

Together with the Malaysian Palm Oil Board, Mustapa was also scheduled to jointly co-host a networking dinner for the European palm oil industry players, it said.

MITI said Mustapa would also be meeting his counterpart, the European Commissioner for Trade, to discuss the way forward for Malaysia European Union Free Trade Agreement.

In 2016, total trade with the European Union (EU) increased by 0.4 percent to RM149.1 billion (€32.5 billion).

Malaysia’s exports to the EU rose by 1.2 percent to RM79.8 billion (€17.4 billion), while imports decreased slightly by 0.5% to RM69.2 billion (€15.1 billion) compared with 2015. 

For the period January-August 2017, Malaysia's total trade with the EU amounted to RM113.4 billion (€23.6 billion), an increase of 18.3 percent from the corresponding period in 2016.

Exports valued at RM62.9 billion (€13.1 billion) while imports were at RM50.5 billion (€10.5 billion).

Germany is Malaysia’s largest trading partner from the EU in 2016 with total bilateral trade increased by 7.1 percent to RM46.1 billion (€10.0 billion).

From this total, exports to Germany increased by 13.5 percent to RM22.3 billion (€4.9 billion), and imports from Germany increased by 1.8 percent to RM23.4 billion (€5.2 billion).

Total bilateral trade with the Netherlands decreased by 10.9 percent to RM29.0 billion (€6.3 billion).

Malaysia’s exports to the Netherlands decreased by 6.3 percent to RM22.0 billion (€4.8 billion) and imports dropped by 22.8 percent to RM7.0 billion (€1.5 billion) compared to 2015.

As for Belgium, total bilateral trade grew by 7.5 percent to RM6.8 billion (€1.5 billion).

Malaysia’s exports to Belgium increased by 11.9 percent to RM4.2 billion (€913.7 million, and imports rose by 1.2 percent to RM2.6 billion (€570.2 million) as compared to 2015.

Germany and the Netherlands are the top two investors from the EU, while Belgium is ranked in the top ten.

As of December 2016, Malaysia has approved RM69.2 billion (€15.6 billion) of investments with German, Dutch and Belgian participation involving 949 manufacturing projects.

These have created more than 140,428 jobs.

- Bernama