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SPEECH BY THE HONOURABLE DATO’ SRI ANIFAH HJ AMAN MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS, MALAYSIA
SPEECH BY THE HONOURABLE DATO’ SRI ANIFAH HJ AMAN
MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS, MALAYSIA
ON THE OCCASION OF THE NEW YEAR DINNER
FOR FOREIGN HEADS OF MISSION
HOSTED BY
THE HONOURABLE MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS MALAYSIA
THURSDAY, 5 JANUARY 2012
SHANGRI-LA KUALA LUMPUR
The Honourable Senator A. Kohilan Pillay
The Honourable Datuk Richard Riot Anak Jaem
Deputy Ministers of Foreign Affairs,
His Excellency Tan Sri Mohd Radzi Abdul Rahman
Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
His Excellency Nasser Salman Nasser Abd. Allah Al-Boudi
Dean of the Diplomatic Corps,
Excellencies, Ambassadors and High Commissioners,
Members of the Diplomatic Corps,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
At the outset, please allow me to wish all of you a very good evening and a very Happy New Year. It is my pleasure to welcome all of you to this dinner held in conjunction with the New Year. As we usher in the New Year, I am sure we are all looking forward to a year which will bring us greater peace, stability and prosperity for all our citizens around the world.
2. I must confess that I have been wanting to organise this annual New Year gathering with the members of the Diplomatic Corps since the day I was appointed as the Foreign Minister in 2009. Never did I realise being a Foreign Minister there are many things that one could aspire to do – but will never or seldom get the chance to realise them. This annual gathering is one of them.
3. I am very pleased that finally we managed to organise this gathering. I must sincerely thank all of you, distinguished members of the Diplomatic Corps and invited guests for your attendance despite the short notice invitation. Basically I intend to share with you some of the highlights of the events that have taken place in relation to our foreign relations in the last one year as well as our general direction for the coming years.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
4. Looking back in 2011, Malaysia has achieved much progress in the pursuit of our foreign policy. The year 2011 saw a significant number of incoming and outgoing high level visits from and to Malaysia involving Heads of State and Government as well as at the Foreign Minister level. In all, the 51 incoming and outgoing visits reflect the active pace of our foreign policy. Even at the end of 2011, we received two high level visits, namely the visit by the President of Turkmenistan and the Prime Minister of Qatar. Today, our Prime Minister had the pleasure to host the Prime Minister of Singapore who was here for a bilateral visit. This signifies a good beginning for the year and augurs well for our relations with our immediate neighbour.
5. The past year also saw Malaysia entering into agreements and negotiations in many areas of bilateral cooperation. For example, Malaysia and EU are actively negotiating the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) and the Malaysia-EU FTA. With the countries in the Americas, Malaysia has completed or initiated negotiations including Malaysia-Chile FTA, 123 Agreement with the US, agreements with Mexico, Brazil, Cuba, Argentina, Venezuela and Canada, all aimed at harnessing the potentials of our bilateral relations.
6. We continue to explore the potential of strategic partnership with African countries in order to enhance and strengthen our ties. The recent Langkawi International Dialogue held in June 2011 with the theme of “Enhancing Smart Partnership for Socio-Economic Transformation” had successfully provided a new platform for exploring business and investment opportunities between Malaysia and its African partners.
7. The year 2011 also witnessed Malaysia being accepted into various international bodies including membership of UNESCO World Heritage Committee 2011 – 2015, the Executive Board of the World Health Organisation (WHO), membership of the International Bureau of Education (IBE) of UNESCO and the Chairmanship of the Third Committee of the 66th UN General Assembly. This shows the confidence of the international community in Malaysia’s ability to contribute meaningfully in these organisations. We thank you for the support extended to our candidatures. On the same note also, we seek your continued support to our future candidatures particularly the candidature of Dr. Jomo Kwame Sundaram to the post of Director-General of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and our candidature as Non-Permanent Member of the UN Security Council for 2015-2016.
8. While we look back fondly at 2011, we have also taken stock of many events around the world that challenged our resolve, from the persistent financial and economic crises that continue to beset many economies, to continuing and new political conflicts, and to natural disasters of catastrophic scale. To those who had lost their loved ones, places of abode and livelihood in the many catastrophic events that occurred in 2011, I offer our hope that they will find greater solace this year and in the years to come. We commiserate with our neighbours that are experiencing hardship caused by the erratic climactic conditions. We in Malaysia are also experiencing floods in some parts of the country albeit of a lesser scale. Malaysia would do what it can, with whatever means it has, to assist in the rebuilding efforts in your countries, where possible.
9. As we look forward to this coming year, let the challenges that we faced in the past be lessons learnt for us to build greater resolve among us as we meet the challenges that await us in this coming year. I am confident with the spirit of friendship and cooperation that is inherent among the countries in the world we will overcome any challenges that confront us for us to build a better world.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
10. We at Wisma Putra are consciously paving the way in the conduct of our foreign policy to enhance our friendship and form strategic partnerships in order to support our aspirations to become a high-income developed nation by year 2020.
11. In pursuing these friendly relations, economic diplomacy emphasising trade and investment is given added importance in our effort to sustain the momentum of the country’s economic development. As one of the most open economies in the world, Malaysia will continue to engage the outside world in order for us to remain competitive for the country’s well-being.
12. Enhancing the robust relations with our neighbours in Southeast Asia remains a high priority. We wish to congratulate Indonesia for their effective and successful chairmanship of ASEAN throughout 2011. In the same vein, we also wish to congratulate Cambodia for their chairmanship of ASEAN for this year. We pledge our full support to Cambodia in their endeavour to lead ASEAN in 2012.
13. Malaysia looks forward to assume the Chairmanship of ASEAN in 2015 when many of the goals, especially with regards to the ASEAN Community are expected to be realised. This would mark an exciting period for ASEAN as we collectively work together to achieve greater peace and prosperity for our 500 million inhabitants. We are optimistic that by 2015, ASEAN would have overcome most of the challenges in the political-security, economic and socio-cultural areas to form a single community.
14. While maintaining focus on our relations with ASEAN partners and neighbours, we continue to strengthen strategic ties with our traditional partners and markets in Europe, Asia and the US. We look forward to further explore avenues of cooperation with countries in the Middle East, Latin America, Africa and other regions. We now have 106 diplomatic missions in all corners of the globe which is an expression of our inclination and interest to strengthen our bilateral ties in many parts of the world.
15. From a global perspective, Malaysia will continue to provide unwavering and continuing support for the United Nations and the multilateral principles based on international law. Malaysia will continue to advocate its principled views on matters of concern, where we take the view that all nations, no matter how large or small, rich or poor, strong or weak have a common responsibility to create a better world for tomorrow.
16. In Malaysia’s effort to promote international peace and understanding, Prime Minister Dato’ Sri Najib Tun Abdul Razak proposed for the establishment of the Global Movement of the Moderates, an idea which has gained wide acclaim by world leaders. The establishment of diplomatic relations with the Holy See in July 2011, is one of the efforts by Malaysia to foster greater understanding among people of different faiths in Malaysia. An inaugural International Conference of the Global Movement of the Moderates will be held here in Kuala Lumpur from 17 – 19 January 2012. I hope that as members of the diplomatic corps here in KL, you will lend your support to this effort, which is Malaysia’s contribution in its small way towards finding the middle path where we make every effort to live in harmony with each other while accepting and respecting our differences.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentleman,
17. As representatives of your country in Malaysia, I am certain you are following with much interest the various developments in Malaysia. I am sure you are following with keen interest the various government initiatives and programmes including the Government Transformation Programme (GTP); the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP); the New Economic Model (NEM); and the political transformation programmes. These programmes have helped to spur the economic development of Malaysia registering GDP growth of about 5% in 2011. You may also be interested to see how these initiatives and programmes fit towards enhancing beneficial relations between us. Apart from following the economic development of the country, I am also certain that you have also been following other aspects of development in Malaysia.
18. You may have begun to analyse the timing of the next General Elections. Unfortunately, I am as clueless as you. I do not posses a crystal ball that would tell me if at all the General elections would be held this year. What I can tell you for certain is that it will be held before the 5-year term is up in 2013, as mandated by the Constitution.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
19. Before I end, I wish to underline that it is part of the role of my Ministry to assist all of you, members of the Diplomatic Corps in Malaysia to dispense your responsibility to promote our bilateral relations. The Ministry endeavours to provide protocol and consular services to all foreign missions based in Kuala Lumpur. Do not hesitate to contact Wisma Putra if we can assist you in any way in discharging your duties in Malaysia. We are open to hear from you on ways to improve our services to the diplomatic community.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
20. I would like to thank you again for your presence this evening and hope you will have an enjoyable evening. Happy New Year and may the coming year bring us continued peace, stability and prosperity.
I would be pleased to answer any of your questions.
Thank you.