KUALA LUMPUR, March 19 (NNN-BERNAMA) —\u00a0Argentina is looking forward to an increase in bilateral activities\u00a0including in trade and investments that are expected to follow after Malaysia’s Foreign Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah\u2019s five-day working visit to Argentina, which took off on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Argentinian Ambassador to Malaysia, Manuel Balaguer Salas, said the high-level delegation will be the\u00a0first\u00a0from Malaysia since 1997 – the year Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir\u00a0Mohamad visited the South American country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFollowing Tun Mahathir\u2019s visit and former Argentinian President Carlos Menem\u2019s visit to Malaysia back in 1996, our bilateral activities have continued to prosper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOf course now, we want to diversify and strengthen the ties, with more partnerships and engagement in many ongoing projects in our country, such as roads, infrastructure, ports, and other areas where Malaysia has the strength.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWith this inaugural visit from the new Malaysian government (especially after more than 20 years), we hope that this will encourage more investors to come and penetrate the potential fields of cooperation offered by the two nations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Salas, who took up his\u00a0post here in 2016, said this in an\u00a0interview with Bernama\u00a0International News Service on Monday, in\u00a0conjunction with Saifuddin\u2019s\u00a0working visit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the visit, the Foreign Minister is scheduled to pay a courtesy call on Argentinian President Mauricio Macri at the President\u2019s Office, Casa Rosada, and hold a bilateral consultation with Argentinian Foreign Affairs Minister Jorge Faurie, said Wisma Putra in a statement on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Saifuddin will also participate in the Second High-Level United Nations Conference on South-South Cooperation (BAPA+40 Conference), besides giving a talk entitled “Malaysia Foreign Policy under the New Government and Its Policy towards Latin America” at the Argentinian Council for International Relations (CARI), highlighting the bilateral relations between Malaysia and Latin America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Salas pointed out that one of the highlights during the bilateral consultation would be on the latest joint venture (JV) between Petroliam Nasional Berhad (Petronas) and Argentine national oil and gas company, Yacimientos Petrol\u00edferos Fiscales (YPF), amounting to US$2.3 billion in the next four years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The JV, made in December last year, is on the development of non-conventional oil in the La Amarga Chica block in Argentina’s Neuquen province.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOn the economic front (besides Petronas), we would also want to further develop with Kuala Lumpur on the halal food sector. We have been working closely with Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (JAKIM) so that we comply with the halal requirements imposed by the Malaysian government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe want to make changes and produce halal beef for the Malaysian market in order to allow the reimportation of our world-renowned beef back to this country, which has been off Malaysian shelves since 2011,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Salas noted bilateral trade between the two countries amounted to US$1.34 billion in 2018, and there are opportunities for expansion, notably in agro-industrial biotechnology and renewable energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Asked on what would be in the pipeline after Saifuddin\u2019s visit, Salas said Argentina\u2019s Vice President Marta Gabriela Michetti Illia will visit Malaysia to \u2018complement\u2019 the visit by the Malaysian foreign minister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs we are going to have the general election in October, a visit by our Vice President, probably in May this year, would be the follow-up event from this March visit by Saifuddin,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Malaysia and Argentina established diplomatic ties in 1967. The Argentinian embassy was opened in August 1983, while Malaysia opened its embassy in Buenos Aires in 1989.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Argentina, with a population of about 40 million, is the eighth-largest country in the world by land area. It borders Paraguay and Bolivia to the north, Brazil and Uruguay to the northeast, and Chile to the west and south.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
— NNN-BERNAMA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Nabilah Saleh KUALA LUMPUR, March 19 (NNN-BERNAMA) —\u00a0Argentina is looking forward to an increase in bilateral activities\u00a0including in trade and investments that are expected to follow after Malaysia’s Foreign Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah\u2019s five-day working visit to Argentina, which took off on Monday. Argentinian Ambassador to Malaysia, Manuel Balaguer Salas, said the high-level delegation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":15073,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[208,288,300,318],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15067"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}