India, Malaysia elevate ties to comprehensive strategic partnership, Ibrahim lauds ‘brother’ PM Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday announced that the ties between India and Malaysia will be elevated to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership after he held talks with his Malaysian counterpart Anwar Ibrahim earlier in the day. The two sides also exchanged several Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) after Ibrahim arrived in the national capital today for a state visit, marking his maiden visit to India as Malaysian PM.

In a joint press statement with his Malaysian counterpart at Hyderabad House, PM Modi said, “After becoming the PM, this is the first visit of Dato’ Seri Anwar bin Ibrahim. I am happy to have the opportunity to welcome you at the beginning of my third term. India and Malaysia are completing a decade of partnership and in the last two years, with the support of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, our partnership has gained a new momentum and energy.”

The Indian leader further said he discussed all avenues of bilateral cooperation with Ibrahim and said the investment from Malaysia to India reached over $5 million per year. Lauding the India-Malaysia relationship, he said that the two countries have “more potential” when it comes to ties, which is why the cooperation must be increased.

In a major achievement, PM Modi said India’s UPI will be collaborating with Malaysian Paynet, and the linkage of the two will be worked upon. “We must increase our cooperation in the field of New technology areas, such as fintech, semiconductor, AI and Quantum,” he added.

The Malaysian premier lauded PM Modi as his “brother”, saying that India and Malaysia have several avenues to further explore. “Prime Minister Narendra Modi is my brother. Even when I was not the PM he was very kind…We have agreed to enhance the further comprehensive strategic partnership…” Ibrahim said in the joint press statement with PM Modi today. “We will reinvigorate this working relations in all fields…We discuss as true brothers on all issues, sensitive or unlike wise, because this is the true meaning of friendship. We have established an understanding of a number of issues, and the Prime Minister kindly mentioned some of them. But I have said, as we have said in the meetings, we will extend this,” Ibrahim further said. He also called India an important and great nation and invited Indian companies to collaborate in Malaysian business initiatives. “We would hope that Indian companies with Malaysian companies collaborate further in all fields, including the new challenging areas like energy transition, digitalization, and also food security,” he added.