Kedah, the border of two countries, Malaysia and Thailand, are set to joint powers to develop the area into a “Rubber City” to produce and promote its products as agreed by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, Malaysia’s Prime Minister and Yingluck Shina-watra, Thailand’s Prime Minister during the APEC leaders summit in Vladivostok in Eastern Russia last September 9, 2012.
Najib told the Malaysian journalists in the said event that the Malaysian government has assigned the responsibility to Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad to recognize the area and the projects that are necessary to turn the area into successful Rubber city.
He also said that Yingluck has assured that the government of Thailand will delve to develop the southern part of the country through training the local people and educating them on how to start a small to medium scale enterprise.
Najib on the other hand has said there will be a meeting next month with the two foreign ministers to talk about the said project while during the event he met the Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard who he discussed with regarding the help that Australian government want to give to the Malaysian government that turned as an attack in the Parliament.
The Malaysian Prime Minister also had a bilateral talk with Premier John Keys of New Zealand discussing the development of the two nation’s free trade agreement.
Najib also had a talk with the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin about the possibility of getting more Russians to visit Malaysia and increase the tourist rate of the country. He said that in the current time, only 40,000 Russians visit Malaysia every year which is very far from the numbers of Russians who go to Thailand annual which is 800,000 and to Turkey which is 3 million.
“Their tourists have high spending power and would be a boost to our tourism industry,” Najib said.
Najib and the other 19 economic leaders were welcomed by Putin at a simple ceremony at the Far East Federal University Campus to discuss of a possible free trade between all countries involved. (PRA)