KUALA LUMPUR: Chinese firms will invest more than $1.6bn to build steel, aluminium and palm oil processing plants and expand a port in a new industrial zone on the Malaysian east coast, Malaysia announced yesterday.
The Chinese spending is part of total joint investments of 10.5bn ringgit ($3.5bn) expected by 2020 in the new Kuantan Industrial Park as Beijing moves to deepen its ties with the Southeast Asian nation. China has rapidly moved to expand its diplomatic, cultural and economic influence in Southeast Asia in recent years, from funding mega-dams and casinos in the Mekong region to pushing its territorial claims in the South China Sea.
The signing comes a day after Malaysia was criticised by Human Rights Watch for what the group said was the deportation to China of six asylum seekers from the Uighur ethnic minority.
A dozens-strong Chinese delegation led by Jia Qinglin, a senior member of the Communist Party Politburo Standing Committee, was also to sign an agreement on Tuesday to set up the first major Chinese university campus on foreign soil in Malaysia.
Speaking at the ground-breaking ceremony, Prime Minister Najib Razak said Malaysia had been “ahead of the curve” in enhancing economic and diplomatic cooperation with China.
“Over the past decade, the world has come to terms with a model where China’s need for resources has driven new patterns of trade and influence,” he said at the ground-breaking ceremony for the industrial park in the eastern state of Pahang.
“Now it is beginning to recognise that Chinese innovation and domestic demand will prove just as potent a force in the global economy.”
Chinese firm Guangxi Beibu International Port Group will partner with Malaysia’s IJM Corporation Berhad in a 3bn ringgit investment to deepen and expand Kuantan port. Guangxi Beibu will also lead investments of 5bn ringgit ($1.6bn) to build the steel, aluminium and palm oil plants.
Reuters
