Prime Minister of Malaysia Dr Mahathir Mohamad has emphasized the need for promoting people-to-people contacts and encouraging tourism between Pakistan and Malaysia to further bolster friendship and knowledge between the two countries.
In an interview with state-run Pakistan Television on Saturday, the Malaysian Prime Minister said both the countries have greater trade and investment potential and it is required to identify the factors to improve the trade relations in areas where the investment can be made.
"Pakistan has a lot of natural resources, so as Malaysia and the countries can complement each other," the PM said. The Malaysian Prime Minister, who concluded his three-day state visit to Pakistan on Saturday, said he was happy over the visit, which provided him an opportunity to interact with the Pakistani leadership and identify the areas of trade and economic cooperation between the two countries.
He mentioned peace and stability coupled with the measures of promoting tourism as prerequisites for any country to achieve economic progress and development.
Dr Mahathir Mohamad mentioned the huge number of tourists attracted every year to Malaysia, which had only 32 million population, and said as he felt comfortable during his stay in Pakistan, which had all the ingredients to promote tourism and tap its potential.
Besides punishments, he said the menace of corruption could also be tackled by promoting ethical and religious values in the society. He, however, added that leaders must not be corrupt, if they were then it was very difficult to check the menace.
To a question about Islamophobia, the Malaysian Prime Minister said, "Islam being a religion of peace taught us not to fight, kill or indulge in violence. We need to find out what we have done wrong."
At the same time, he said the media should not be allowed to be used by the people, who had no knowledge about Islam. Dr Mahathir also spoke about how his country, which was an agrarian society, achieved socio-economic progress and development through increased industrialization by attracting local and foreign investors.
He said for industrialization, foreign investors were offered various incentives, which later enabled his country's people, who acquired technical kills and know-how by working with foreign companies, to establish their own industries.
He said the promotion of technical education, skill enhancement and knowledge-based information and technologies were very important for industrialization of any country, including Pakistan.
Malaysia's automotive company Proton was establishing a car assembly plant in Karachi in cooperation with Pakistan's Al-Haj Automotive and the first Proton car would be on the road by June next year.
Prime Minister Imran Khan and his Malaysian counterpart performed the symbolic ground-breaking of the car assembly plant during the Pak-Malaysia Investment Roundtable in Islamabad on Friday.
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