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Exclusive | Malaysia’s revived deals with China proves its support for belt and road: trade minister Darell Leiking
- The RM21.5 billion haircut on the original East Coast Rail Link deal demonstrates that clear parameters are possible for BRI projects from the start
- Malaysia wants to do more business with China and doesn’t see Huawei as a national security threat
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Malaysia’s resumption of a billion-dollar Chinese-backed rail project and its enthusiasm for telecoms group Huawei underscores its interest in doing deals with China that promote fair trade and job creation, Trade Minister Darell Leiking said on Saturday.
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Leiking said his government’s request after coming to power last May for a review of the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) project price had been, on occasion, misrepresented as distaste for the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s ambitious plan to boost global trade.
But a fresh deal between state-owned enterprises from both sides to reduce the ECRL’s construction cost by one-third - and a visit to Huawei’s Beijing office by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Thursday – showed the robustness of bilateral ties, Leiking told the South China Morning Post in an exclusive interview.
“Contrary to naysayers, contrary to all those who negated all our good intentions, we’ve proven, and so has China, that we’ve always remained close, both our governments and also our private sectors,” said Leiking, who attended the second Belt and Road Forum with Mahathir and several other cabinet ministers.
Before the Malaysian delegation arrived on Wednesday, Kuala Lumpur announced that the first two phases of the ECRL would cost the country 44 billion ringgit (US$10.7 billion), down from the 65.5 billion approved by disgraced former leader Najib Razak’s administration.
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