Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Malaysia is set to spur new momentum in bilateral relations between the countries, said Dato' Abdul Majid Ahmad Khan, president of the Malaysia-China Friendship Association.
Xi arrived in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday for a state visit at the invitation of Malaysian King Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar and wrapped up the visit on Thursday morning.
"[It's a] meaningful visit in terms of our bilateral relations. President Xi actually visited Malaysia 12 years ago, and during the period of last 12 years, Malaysia-China relations have really expanded. So we will expect the second visit will actually start another (wave of) momentum," he said.
Khan underscored that as the two countries embark on the second 50 years of their diplomatic journey, boosted ties may help Malaysia accelerate progress along its development pathway.
"Malaysia-China relations, economic cooperation, driven mainly by bilateral trade as well as investment, and also now people-to-people exchanges. The areas that we would like now to concentrate is actually to move to another level of development. Can Malaysia, like China, move into high tech, move up into the value chains. Here, we can learn a lot from China now through the last 30 years [when China] has actually make a breakthrough in technological advancement, in terms of new tools of growth, and also we would like to further deepen the supply chains between China, Malaysia and ASEAN," said the association president.
He also highlighted the importance China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in helping to dramatically improve infrastructure in Malaysia.
"BRI to us is very important because it aims to actually [enhance] connectivity, particularly in term of global trading activities through construction support, railways, airports, the East Coast Railway Link. It is 80 percent completed and I firmly believe once this railway link is completed. It'll be a game changer for Malaysia," Khan said.
Malaysia is the second leg of Xi's current five-day, three-nation Southeast Asia tour, which began with a two-day state visit to Vietnam, and also takes him to Cambodia for a state visit.
Xi's visit to Malaysia to add new momentum to bilateral ties: friendship association head
