VLADIVOSTOK, Russia, Sept 6 — Malaysia hopes for the influx of Russian companies into the country and an increase in the tourist flow between the two nations, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said in an interview with RIA Novosti and RT, reported Sputnik.
"With Russia, I think the potential is there. We hope, now that we have talked to a lot of major companies in Russia, that they would come to Malaysia and increase particularly tourism, that would be of benefit.
“We are also making it easier for Malaysian tourists to visit Russia," Anwar said on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF).
The EEF began on Tuesday and will run through Friday. It is being hosted by the Far Eastern Federal University in Russia's Pacific coast city of Vladivostok. Sputnik is the general information partner of the EEF 2024.
Anwar said cooperation with Russia, as well as China and India, will also benefit Malaysia's economy.
"This issue of centrality and engaging with the United States, which is still a major player in terms of investments and trade with Malaysia, with Europe, particularly Germany, and more so now with China, India and Russia, it will benefit us.”
Meanwhile, the prime minister said he was excited about his first trip to Russia, which he had previously known only through Russian literature, adding that he wants to visit St. Petersburg and Moscow.
"I am excited. I will say today in my lecture that I know Russia more from the novels of (Boris) Pasternak, poems of Anna Akhmatova, and (Lev) Tolstoy. I am looking forward to seeing Moscow and particularly St. Petersburg, which, I think, is one of the most marvellous cities in the world.”
— Bernama
