The Prime Minister said Malaysia wanted to make the issuance of visas in India easier, adding: “There are now five centres, and we hope to have more in the smaller cities.
“The smaller cities are not all that small. They are just small in the Indian context, but (to us) they are huge by any stretch of the imagination,” he told the Malaysian media delegation here yesterday.
“I will bring it up and the appropriate agencies will take action to expand the number of visa centres in India,” he said.
The five visa centres in India are currently located in New Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Calcutta.
Malaysian companies were urged to tap into the emerging middle-class in India once the services and investments sectors between Asean and India were liberalised.
“The emergence of the middle-class in India with high purchasing power is a big market for us, particularly in the areas of tourism, education and medical tourism,” he said.
At the summit on Thursday, Asean leaders and Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh endorsed the Asean-India Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in the services and investments sectors.
The FTA, expected to be inked in August next year, would liberalise sub-sectors like healthcare, tourism, transportation services, communications, construction, business services, education, environmental services, tourism and travel-related services, pharmaceutical and bio-technology.
Najib said Indian businessmen would also be wooed to invest in Malaysia, particularly in their areas of speciality such as pharmaceutical, bio-technology, information and communication technologies, and manufacturing.
He said Malaysia could also be marketed as a destination for tertiary education.
(Source: The Star Website)
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