Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and his Malaysian counterpart Abdullah Ahmed Badawi met here on Friday on the sidelines of the Development Eight (D-8) Summit to exchange views on bilateral and regional issues and agreed to expedite ongoing negotiations for an early signing of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA).
"We are moving very fast and hope to finalise the FTA during the next couple of months, Shaukat and Badawi told reporters after the meeting in the Indonesian resort island of Bali.
PML Secretary General Mushahid Hussain, Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri, Information Minister Muhammad Ali Durrani, Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan, Minister for Inter-Provincial Co-ordination Senator Saleem Saifullah and Tourism Minister Nilofer Bakhtiar and Malaysian cabinet ministers were also present during the meeting.
Later, both the leaders held exclusive meeting for sometime and discussed bilateral and regional issues of mutual interest. Badawi expressed satisfaction over the strong bilateral ties between the two countries that continue to grow with the passage of time.
To a question, Shaukat said that he discussed matters relating to Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), which is currently chaired by Malaysia. "The OIC under his (Prime Minister Badawi) leadership has taken a lot of initiatives, like capacity building and other issues and Pakistan fully supports these initiatives," he said.
He expressed satisfaction at the growing number of Pakistanis working in Malaysia.
Later briefing the newsmen, Foreign Minister Kasuri said that Pakistan and Malaysia enjoy close co-operation. Both the countries had already signed the "Early Harvest Programme" which is in force since January 1 this year and is the first step towards FTA.
Under the Early Harvest Programme, Malaysia has given tariff concessions on 114 items as against 125 by Pakistan which has secured lower duty of 5 percent from 50 percent on textile products that constitute most of the country's exports to the South East Asian country. Shaukat noted historically strong ties between the two countries and expressed the confidence that frequent high-level contacts between both the countries would further strengthen and expand diplomatic, political and economic ties.
Kasuri said that the prime minister thanked the Malaysian leader for taking personal interest with regard to Pakistani labour working in Malaysia. On D-8, both the leaders agreed that it was an important forum and decided to adopt co-ordinated policies to make it an effective body.
Both The leaders noted great potential in D-8 and agreed that if needed an institutionalised mechanism could be created to achieve its desired objectives. Shaukat extended an invitation to the Malaysian counterpart to attend the Muslim Economic Forum to be held in Islamabad in November, which he accepted.