India–Malaysia relations

India–Malaysia relations

India
Malaysia
Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Najib Razak at Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar in 2014.
Malaysian Natural Resources Minister G Palanivel and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi.

India–Malaysia relations (Malay: Hubungan India-Malaysia) refer to bilateral foreign relations between the Republic of India and Malaysia. India has a high commission in Kuala Lumpur,[1] and Malaysia has a high commission in New Delhi and a consulate general in Chennai and Mumbai.[2] Both countries are full members of the Commonwealth of Nations,[3] Asian Union and G15.[4] India and Malaysia are also connected by various cultural and historical ties that date back to antiquity.[5] The two countries are on excellently friendly terms with each other seeing as Malaysia is home to a strong concentration of Indian immigrants. Mahathir bin Mohamad, the fourth and longest serving Prime Minister of Malaysia has Indian ancestry.[6] On trade front their bilateral trade volume stands at $10.5 billion and is poised to reach $25 billion by 2020.

Ancient relations

Visits by High Level Officials[7]

There have been regular high level exchanges between the leaders of the two countries, including recently by Malaysia's Prime Minister Mohd Najib to India in 19 – 23 January 2010 and the Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to Malaysia from 26 to 28 October 2010. The two Prime Ministers decided to establish a bilateral Strategic Partnership in October 2010 which envisions development of a multi-faceted relationship from the long term and strategic perspective. The Malaysian Prime Minister, Mohd Najib Razak visited India from 20–21 December 2012 to attend the ASEAN-India Commemorative Summit in New Delhi. He was accompanied by Foreign Minister, Minister of International Trade & Industry and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department.

Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin bin Yassin paid an official visit to India from 8 to 13 March 2011, during which he met with the Prime Minister, the External Affairs Minister, the Minister of Road Transport and Highways and Minister of HRD. Other high level visitors from Malaysia in 2011 included the Minister for Science, Technology and Innovation visited India in February 2011, the Minister of Works in February 2011, Minister of Health in March 2011 and Minister for International Trade and Industry in March 2011, and the Minister of Finance II in October 2011, Minister of Plantation Industries and Commodities in June 2012, Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment in October 2012 to attend the 11th Conference of Parties (COP-11) to the Convention on Bio-diversity (CBD) in Hyderabad, Minister of Agriculture in October 2012 to attend the 2nd Meeting of the ASEAN-India Agricultural Ministers on co-operation in Agriculture and Forestry at New Delhi and ASEAN-India Agri Expo organised at the National Agriculture Science Centre(NASC) Complex, New Delhi, Minister of Energy, Green Technology and Water in November 2012 to attend the Meeting of Ministers of Renewable Energy of India and ASEAN countries held at New Delhi.

Defence Co-operation [7]

India-Malaysia defence relations have steadily grown over the years. A MOU on Defence Cooperation was signed in 1993. The Malaysian Defence Minister Dato Seri Mohd. Najib (now PM) had visited India in 2006 and Indian Defence Minister Shri Pranab Mukherji (now President of India) visited Malaysia in January 2008. Malaysia-Indian Defence Cooperation meetings at the level of Defence Secretary from Indian side and Secretary General from Malaysian side are held regularly; the ninth meeting of the MIDCOM was held in January 2012 at Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia; The Staff Talks between the three Services are being held regularly. Service Chiefs from both countries have regularly exchanged visits; The Chief of Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal NAK Browne, PVSM, AVSM, VM, ADC made an official visit to Malaysia in February 2012; an IAF Training Team was deployed in Malaysia from February 2008 to September 2010 to train Malaysian pilots on the Sukhoi-30MKM. India participates regularly in the biennial LIMA exhibition, including the last one held at Langkawi in December 2011; Malaysia participates in the biennial MILAN event regularly. RMN participated in MILAN in February 2012 with one RMN Vessel and one Commander Naval Area; Indian navy and coast guard vessels make regular friendly port calls each year at Malaysian ports. India is also participating in the Cooperative Mechanism on the Straits of Malacca and Singapore (SOMS) and contributed to two of the six IMO Projects (Project 1 and Project 4) for enhancement of navigational safety and environmental protection in the Straits.

Although the India-Malaysia defence relationship has improved considerably in recent years, Malaysia has remained cautious about the engagement. Malaysia has not always been enthusiastic about India’s role as a maritime security provider in the Andaman Sea or a potential security role in the Malacca Strait.[8]

Economic and Commercial Relations [7]

Economic and commercial relations are emerging as the mainstay of the bilateral relationship. With the advent of the Malaysia-India Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) as a single undertaking covering goods, services, investment and other areas of co-operation, on 1 July 2011, economic and commercial relations are expected to further increase

The two sides are finalising the Revised Double Taxation Agreement, which was signed in May 2012 and a MoU on Cooperation in the Field of Customs is expected to be signed shortly.

Bilateral trade has increased from US$0.6 billion in 1992 to US$13.32 billion in 2012. The trade has more than doubled from US$5 billion to US$13.32 billion between 2005 and 2012. In 2012, bilateral trade has shown a growth of 7.3% year-on-year to reach US$13.3 billion (as compared to US$12.5 billion for the year 2011). Trade remains significantly imbalanced in favour of Malaysia (India's exports are US$3.83 billion, Malaysian exports are US$9.5 billion). As per Indian statistics, the corresponding figures of bilateral trade in Jan-Dec 2012 were US $14.62 billion. India’s exports to Malaysia were worth US $3.83 billion and India’s import from Malaysia were worth US $10.79 billion

Based on direct investments Malaysia is the 27th largest investor in India with cumulative FDI inflows valued at US$498.33 million from April 2000 to September 2012. In addition, more than US$6 billion in Malaysian investments are believed to be invested in India through the third country route. Notable among these are Maxis Communications in Aircel, Axiata in IDEA Cellular Ltd, Khazanah in IDFC, Apollo Hospitals, Yes Bank, etc. The largest presence of Malaysian construction companies outside Malaysia is in India. They have completed 69 construction projects worth US$3.5 billion in India, while 19 projects worth 2.4 billion are under various stages of implementation. Under a partnership with Malaysian Airports, GMR completed airport in Hyderabad in 2008, and the second one in Delhi in July 2010.

Tourism[7]

Air links have improved significantly following a bilateral agreement in 2007 to progressively increase the seat capacity to six major destinations in India and a provision for multiple destinations and designating any number of airlines to operate on the India–Malaysia routes. At present, there are 114 flights between two countries, of which 93 are operated by Malaysian airlines and 21 by Indian airlines. Regular meeting of the Civil Aviation Ministries are held to liberalise the connexions, and the last meeting was held in Kuala Lumpur in October 2011. India is the sixth largest source country for inbound tourism to Malaysia with about 650,989 Indian tourists visiting Malaysia in 2013.[9] Malaysia is the tenth largest source country for foreign tourists visiting India with 199,128 Malaysians visiting India in 2011.In March 2016,Malaysia also started its Online EVISA facility for Indian citizens travelling to Malaysia for Tourism purposes signifying ease and welcome gesture by Malaysia towards India.India also gives Malaysian citizens Evisas and Malaysian citizens have been the top users of this facility since its launch.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Welcome to High Commission of India, Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)". Indianhighcommission.com.my. Retrieved 2016-09-18.
  2. ↑ "Welcome To The Official Website of high commission of Malaysia, New Delhi". Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Malaysia. Retrieved 2 September 2011.
  3. ↑ "Commonwealth Secretariat - Member States". Commonwealth of Nations. Retrieved 3 September 2011.
  4. ↑ The official website adopts the "G-15" orthography (with a hyphen) in order to distinguish an abbreviated reference to this group -- contrasts with other similarly named entities.
  5. ↑ "Culture". High Commission of India in Malaysia. Retrieved 3 September 2011.
  6. ↑ Teoh, Shannon (8 March 2011). "Dr M admits he has Indian blood". Archived from the original on 13 October 2014. Retrieved 11 August 2014.
  7. 1 2 3 4 "Bilateral - Welcome to High Commission of India, Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)". Indianhighcommission.com.my. Retrieved 2016-09-18.
  8. ↑ David Brewster. "India's Defence Strategy and the India-ASEAN Relationship". Academia.edu. Retrieved 24 August 2014.
  9. ↑
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Relations of India and Malaysia.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 9/18/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.