Indonesian, Malaysian, Thai leaders to discuss sub-regional development

Leaders from Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand will hold their first-ever Indonesia- Malaysia-Thailand-Growth Triangle (IMT-GT) summit on Sunday, which will provide a further boost to sub-regional development in the three countries.

The Malaysian minister in the Prime Minister's Department, Mustapa Mohamed, said economic cooperation among the three countries would move a notch higher owing to increased development of the IMT-GT.

This is the first meeting where three leaders from Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia will meet under one umbrella (IMT-GT).

"It is a subset of ASEAN. Cooperation among the three countries has been developed over the last 10 years and we hope the involvement of the leaders would provide further encouragement," Mustapa told reporters here Sunday.

Mustapa is Malaysia's minister overseeing the development of the IMT-GT.

"We have been working in trade and investment. Trade is done quite well including bilateral trade as well as tourism, but I think we need to do more in terms of investments among small and medium scale entrepreneurs," he said.

"We hope this will provide a basis for moving forward at a faster pace," he added.

Set up 12 years ago by leaders of the three countries, IMT-GT aims to bring about economic progress and upliftment to the depressed areas in the sub-regions of Southeast Asia.

Source: Xinhua