Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said on Monday that the Free Trade Agreement between Malaysia and New Zealand had concluded with basically no pending discussions.

 

Najib made this remark after a close door meeting with New Zealand Prime Minister John Key at the Malaysian Prime Minister's office in Putrajaya, the administration center of the country's federal government.

 

John Key, who is on his working visit to Malaysia, called on Najib Monday afternoon and signed the Malaysia-New Zealand FTA.

 

Najib, who described the signing of FTA as the meeting's highlight, said that the two Prime Ministers examined the economic relations between the two countries and found that the bilateral trade figures were strong.

 

He noted that the figures almost double from 2006 to 2008, amounting to 6.15 billion ringgit (1.76 billion U.S. dollars).

 

Although the numbers had fallen this year, the Prime Ministers said that this was a short term phenomenon, given that the recovering of the global economy would drive the trade in 2010 up, added Najib.

 

While the signing of the Malaysia-New Zealand FTA was a significant milestone, Najib hoped it would boost trade and investment from New Zealand in Malaysia.

 

He also said that New Zealand investors and business community should perceive Malaysia as the gateway to penetrate the ASEAN market.

 

Besides trade, Najib noted that in 2008, there was an encouraging number of 56,000 tourists arrivals in Malaysia from New Zealand.

 

Touching on the Five Power Defense Arrangements (FPDA), Najib said New Zealand was committed to seeing the region as being peaceful and stable.

 

The FDPA are a series of defense relationships established by bilateral agreements between the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore signed in 1971.

 

Najib also said that other areas of cooperation included science, technology, information and communication technology as well as the development of green technology.

 

On multilateral issues, Najib said New Zealand was also committed to realizing the goal of creating the ASEAN and East Asia community where prosperity was shared together.