Mr Mohamed stressed on developing closer partnerships to tap the huge unrealised economic potential between India and ASEAN through greater business-to-business and people-to-people collaboration, according to a press release by Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS) that organized the seminar.

He said that Malaysians have been investing abroad and there are many Malaysian companies in India also. Malaysia is set to make more investment in India to contribute to ‘Make in India’ campaign, he added. Malaysian investments in India stand at $6 billion while Indian investment in Malaysia is only $1.2 billion.

Mr Ravi Capoor, joint secretary, in the commerce and industry ministry, added this is the time for East. He said that while there is an India-Malaysia CECA in place but its utilisation has been only 5 percent. “To overcome this, we need to educate our industries to increase our business,” he said.

Mr Sachin Chaturvedi, director-general, RIS said that with the change in government, India is undergoing many policy changes of which four dimensions could be highlighted. These include investment, infrastructure, ease of doing business, technology and innovation and labour reforms.