KUALA LUMPUR: Last week's row over the loaning of two pandas from China, seems to not have dampened Malaysia's push to boost investment with the East Asian country. Animal rights activists called repeatedly for a deal that involved the sending of two pandas from China to Malaysia to be canceled, arguing that animals should not be part of diplomacy and that the move was cruel and inhumane. “I am definitely worried over what is going to happen next for the pandas,” activist and university student Mohira Hassan told Bikyamasr.com. “They should not have come in the first place,” she added. But Malaysia is pushing on, aiming to create more business with China, especially in telecommunications, transportation, construction and steel manufacturing under the country's Economic Transformation Program, said Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin. He told reporters that Malaysia welcomed multinational companies from China to undertake the RM8 billion Gemas to Johor Bharu Electrified Double-Tracking project that would span over 197 kilometers. “We are delighted too that China has invited Malaysia to tap the halal products market in Ning Xia. “I do hope that more joint venture projects will be undertaken both in Malaysia and China in the future,” he said at a dinner for the visiting Chinese Communist Party delegation. The delegation is headed by the member of the standing committee of the political bureau, Secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Central Committee of the CPC, He Guo Qiang. Muhyiddin noted that bilateral trade between Malaysia and China has increased five folds over the last ten years. He said Malaysia today was China's biggest trading partner in the South East Asian Region with trade volume amounting to more than $54 billion, or RM165 billion, this year. “I do hope that more joint venture projects will be undertaken in future both in Malaysia and China,” he said. On development, Muhyiddin said Prime Minister Najib Razak had taken Vision 2020, mooted by former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in 1990, further by implementing various transformation programs to make Malaysia a fully developed and high-income economy by 2020.
