Malaysia’smain export to Japan is liquefied natural gas amounting to 86.4 billionRM (27billion USD) annually, the minister was quoted by The Star onlineas saying.
Automotive components were worth looking at, he said,adding that while Malaysia’s share of the export market was only worth 5billion RM now, the potential to grow was there.
Japan isMalaysia’s top investor, with 1,400 firms operating in the country andinvestments in the manufacturing sector alone has reached 71 billion RM,according to The Star online.
Between January and November, the Government had approved investments worth 3.41billion RM from Japanese firms.
Recentinvestments include Perodua Global Manufacturing Sdn Bhd worth 1.9billion RM to set up highly automated assembly line for energy efficientvehicles and 470 million RM by Honda Malaysia Sdn Bhd to increaseannual production capacity from 50,000 to 100,000 vehicles.
Inaddition, there has also been an increasing trend in retail tradebetween the two countries, with the figures going up from 5.5 percent in2012 to 6.2 percent this year, the minister said.
On thesecond wave of the Look East Policy (LEP), three committees had been setup to spearhead LEP 2.0 – on strategic trade and investment,educational institutions and research and development as well as humancapital development.
The LEP 2.0 was set up to bring Malaysia’srelations with Japan to the next level, which is the advancement oftrade with a higher value chain, he added.-VNA