New Delhi: When Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim arrives in Delhi on Monday evening for a three-day official visit to India, the focus will be on strengthening of bilateral ties across multiple sectors while raising India’s role in the Indo-Pacific with Malaysia set to take over as chair of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2025.
This will be Ibrahim’s first visit to India as Prime Minister after assuming office in 2022. He had earlier visited India in 2019 as president of the People’s Justice Party when he participated in the Raisina Dialogue.
In a statement on Sunday announcing Ibrahim’s visit, the External Affairs Ministry said that India and Malaysia have strong historical and socio-cultural linkages.
“Our bilateral relationship was elevated to the status of Enhanced Strategic Partnership in 2015 during the visit of Prime Minister Modi,” the statement reads. “As both countries enter the second decade of Enhanced Strategic Partnership next year, the visit of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim would pave way for further strengthening of India-Malaysia bilateral ties by charting out a multi-sectoral cooperation agenda for the future.”
During his regular press briefing here last week, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said that the visit would offer an opportunity to review and intensify the engagement between the two countries across a wide spectrum of areas and taking India-Malaysia partnership to newer heights.
India and Malaysia cooperate closely in various multilateral forums, including ASEAN, where India is a strategic partner. Both countries advocate for regional stability, economic integration, and sustainable development. They also collaborate in global forums such as the UN, G20, and the World Trade Organisation (WTO), often supporting each other on key issues such as climate change, sustainable development, and terrorism.
Bilateral trade and investments
Economic and commercial engagement has become an important pillar of the India-Malaysia Enhanced Strategic Partnership. Bilateral trade between the two countries has been steadily growing to reach $20.01 billion in FY 2023-24. Malaysia has emerged as the 16th largest trading partner for India while India figures among the 10 largest trading partners for Malaysia. Malaysia is also India’s third largest trading partner in ASEAN.
Malaysia ranks as the 31st largest investor in India with FDI inflow of $3.3 billion. Besides this, investments worth $5 billion have been announced by various companies in the fields of renewable energy, especially green hydrogen, green ammonia and also infrastructure projects.
Around 70 Malaysian companies, including joint ventures, have established operations in India, focusing on diverse sectors like infrastructure, healthcare, telecommunications, oil and gas, power plants, tourism, and human resources.
There are more than 150 Indian companies, including 61 Indian joint ventures and three Indian public sector undertakings, operating in Malaysia. Indian companies have invested in around 250 manufacturing projects totaling over $2.62 billion.
The bilateral trade has seen significant growth over the years, particularly after the implementation of the India-Malaysia Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) in 2011. This agreement covers goods, services, and investments, and has boosted trade volumes between the two countries. During the visit of Ibrahim, this agreement is expected to come up for review.
Defence cooperation
Another major pillar of cooperation between the two countries is defence. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Defence Cooperation signed in 1993 is the cornerstone of defence relations between the two countries which allows for widening the scope of existing bilateral cooperation to include joint ventures, joint development projects, procurement, logistic and maintenance support and training. An amendment to the MoU was signed in July 2023 during the visit of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to Malaysia.
The 12th edition of the MIDCOM was held in September last year in New Delhi. Indian Navy ships regularly pay port visits to Malaysia, which provides the opportunity to both navies to interact and engage with each other. It assumes significance given China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea. Malaysia is among the Southeast Asia nations that have territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea.
Educational ties
India and Malaysia signed an MoU in 2010 for bilateral cooperation in higher education. About 4,400 Indian students are studying in Malaysia in public and private universities mainly in the streams of engineering, medicine, business administration and social sciences. There are close linkages between the Indian and Malaysian higher educational institutions with over 500 MoUs and agreements.
An estimated 3,000 Malaysian students are studying in India. India offers 40 slots to Malaysia under the Indian Technical an Economic Cooperation (ITEC) programme annually. The Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) offers three scholarships under the General Scholarship Scheme (GSS) and two scholarships under the Education Exchange Programme (EEP) every year to Malaysia. India also offers 20 seats under the AYUSH Scholarship Scheme.
People-to-people and cultural ties
People-to-people ties form another major pillar of the India-Malaysia bilateral relationship. Malaysia has the third largest Indian diaspora in the world (2.9 million). The number of persons of Indian origin (PIOs) is around 2.75 million (about 6.8 percent of Malaysia’s population). While 90 percent of the PIOs speak Tamil, the rest speak Telugu, Malayalam, Punjabi, Bengali, Gujarati and Marathi among others. There are around 185,000 NRIs, both skilled and unskilled, in Malaysia.
An Indian Cultural Centre under ICCR was established in Kuala Lumpur in February 2010 to provide classes in Carnatic vocal, Kathak dance, yoga and Hindi language by trained teachers from India and Malaysia. The Centre was renamed as Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Indian Cultural Center (NSCBICC) by Prime Minister Modi during his visit to Malaysia in 2015.
India is also the fifth largest source country for inbound tourism to Malaysia. The Government of Malaysia announced visa-free travel for Indian nationals from December 1, 2023, until December 31, 2024, to promote inbound tourism to Malaysia. India has allowed Malaysian nationals to travel to India for tourism on a gratis 30-day double entry tourist visa since July 1, 2024.
Challenges in bilateral ties
Illegal immigration, exploitation at workplaces, exploitation of Indian seafarers, repatriation of workers, and human trafficking from India to Malaysia are major causes of concern for the two governments.
Despite strong ties, the bilateral relationship has faced challenges, particularly on issues such as trade imbalances and differing views on regional security dynamics. Political changes in both countries have sometimes led to shifts in focus and priorities. Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir had criticised India for scrapping Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir and introducing the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). India had responded by banning the import of palm oil from Malaysia.
The issue of controversial Muslim preacher Zakir Naik who has made Malaysia his home is another major thorn in India-Malaysia ties. Naik faces incitement and money-laundering charges in India. India has sought his extradition from Malaysia.
However, both nations have consistently worked through diplomatic channels to address these issues and strengthen their partnership. When asked whether the issue of Naik’s extradition will come up during Ibrahim’s visit, spokesperson Jaiswal, during his briefing last week, said that this is a consular issue and such issues are “discussed upon regularly at the consular level”.
Expectations from Ibrahim’s visit
Addressing Malaysian reporters in New Delhi on the eve of Ibrahim’s visit, Malaysian High Commissioner to India Muzafar Shah Mustafa said that seven MoUs will be signed between Malaysia and India involving cooperation in digital, tourism, health, pharmaceuticals, ayurvedic medicine and foreign workers.
“The visit is also expected to open opportunities for cooperation in the fields of renewable energy and electric vehicles (EVs) where India has advantages,” Bernama news agency quoted Mustafa as saying. “In addition, India hopes to strengthen cooperation in the semiconductor industry with Malaysia.”
Another area of discussion, he said, will be Malaysia’s participation in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China) bloc given India’s efforts to strengthen its role at the global stage. The discussions between Modi and Anwar will also focus on India’s role in the Indo-Pacific and New Delhi’s growing outreach to the ASEAN region as part of its Act East Policy.
Mustafa said that India’s desire to open a campus of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Malaysia is also expected to come up for discussion. It is in view of all this that Ibrahim's maiden visit to India as Prime Minister assumes immense significance.
