In First Day of Visit, Tatarstan Delegation Meets with High-ranking Malaysian Government Officials

Rustam Minnikhanov, President of the Republic of Tatarstan in the Russian Federation, arrived in Malaysia yesterday as part of a three-day official visit designed to promote and expand bilateral relations in trade, investment, IT, biotechnology, and higher education between Malaysia and Tatarstan.

Accompanying the Tatarstan President is a delegation including more than 40 Tatarstan business, education, and government officials. Among those in the delegation are Tatarstan Investment Development Agency Chief Executive Linar Yakupov; Tatarstan Minister of Education and Science Engel Fattakhov; Tatarstan Investment and Venture Fund CEO Aynur Aydeldinov; Ak Bars Holding Director Ivan Egorov; and the rectors of Kazan National Research Technological University, Kazan Medical University, Kazan State University of Architecture and Engineering, and Russian Islamic University. Accompanying the Tatarstan delegation is Liudmila Vorobyeva, Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Malaysia.

During the first day of the three-day visit, President Minnikhanov and the Tatarstan delegation met with a range of high-ranking Malaysian government officials, including Dato’ Sri Mohd Najib Tun Abdul Razak, Prime Minister of Malaysia; Dato’ Sri Anifah Aman, Foreign Minister of Malaysia; Dato’ Seri Mustapa Bin Mohamed, Minister of International Trade and Industry of Malaysia; Dato’ Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin, Minister of Higher Education of Malaysia; and Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, former Prime Minister of Malaysia.

The delegation also met with the CEO of Malaysia’s Performance Management and Delivery Unit (PEMANDU), the body responsible for executing the country’s Economic Transformation Programme, a government initiative launched in 2010 with the stated goal of transforming Malaysia into a high-income country by 2020. President Minnikhanov had a business lunch with the managing director of Khazanah National, the Malaysian government’s strategic investment fund.

The current visit to Malaysia comes just over two years after President Minnikhanov’s first visit in 2010. Malaysia’s Minister of International Trade and Industry visited Kazan as part of the 2012 APEC meeting of trade ministers, and there are preliminary discussions of having a Malaysian business delegation visit Tatarstan in autum of this year.

Over the course of yesterday’s meetings, the Tatarstan and Malaysia sides identified several specific areas in which they would like to concentrate bilateral cooperation.

Noting how important knowledge is in the modern economy, both sides agreed that educational exchange programs should form as a compulsory foundation for any future collaboration.

“The future of our relationship depends largely on the students that we will educate today,” President Minnikhanov said during the meeting with Malaysia’s Minister of Higher Education, adding that the fact that his delegation includes four rectors of Tatarstan’s leading universities speaks to the seriousness of the republic’s interest in collaboration through education.

Kazan State Medical University has three Malaysian students currently studying in Tatarstan, a figure that Rector Aleksey Sozinov would like to see increased. To achieve these ends, the university is currently lobbying for certification of its diplomas in Malaysia, a step that the Malaysian side it is willing to support. This would allow Malaysian students who study in Tatarstan to return to Malaysia and freely practice medicine. President Minnikhanov noted that he would like to see a dynamic increase in the number of Malaysian students studying in Tatarstan.

The Tatarstan delegation similarly expressed interest in having more Russian students study in Malaysian educational institutes. Pointing out that the current bilateral relationship between Tatarstan and Malaysia owes a great deal to the network of contacts gained by Tatarstan Investment Development Agency Chief Executive Linar Yakupov when he studied at the International Islamic University of Malaysia, President Minnikhanov challenged the Malaysia government officials to imagine what the bilateral results would be like were hundreds of Tatarstan students to study in Malaysia.

Specifically, President Minnikhanov expressed interest in having the working relationship between Malaysia’s Islamic institutions of higher education and Russian Islamic University continue to grow, explaining that Tatarstan’s Islamic students and professors alike could learn much from Malaysia’s rich educational tradition in what he called proper, tolerant Islam. “We are happy to learn that you are developing your Islamic education and are happy to provide any help possible,” Malaysian Minister of Higher Education replied to President Minnikhanov.

In terms of economic relations, Malaysia and Tatarstan officials believe that halal food production and Islamic banking could serve as a linchpin for future bilateral trade and investment.

After receiving President Minnikhanov for a courtesy call, Malaysian Foreign Minister Dato’ Sri Anifah Aman told the Malaysian press that Tatarstan’s potential in these two industries is very large. “I think there is great potential for Tatarstan and Malaysia to work together in trade and investment, especially in the halal industry, Islamic banking, tourism, and higher education,” the Foreign Minister told Bernama news agency.

In his meeting with President Minnikhanov, Former Prime Minister of Malaysia Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad confirmed that halal industry would be a good starting point for expanding bilateral trade between Malaysia and Tatarstan. Moving forward, however, the former Prime Minister argued that the two sides needed to study and identify a high volume, low weight product that could be effectively traded between the two countries by aircraft.

“As a trading nation, we are very much dependent on the prosperity of our trading partners,” Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad said.

Noting that one current barrier to bilateral trade between Malaysia and Tatarstan is transport logistics, President Minnikhanov announced that his administration was currently exploring possibilities of creating a more convenient air traffic route on flights via Almaty and Astana. Furthermore, the Tatarstan President argued that a direct flight between Kazan and Kuala Lumpur could also be considered, should the bilateral relationship continue to flourish.

Besides halal industry and Islamic banking, the Tatarstan delegation encouraged Malaysia to consider developing strategic relationships with Tatarstan’s oil and heavy machinery industries. Specifically, Tatarstan truck manufacturer Kamaz is interested in exploring Malaysia as an assembly site that could serve as a distribution point for Southeast Asia.

President Minnikhanov also expressed his wishes that Tatarstan could become a strategic investment platform through which Malaysian businessmen enter Russia, a dynamically developing market with enormous investment potential. The Tatarstan president specifically encouraged Malaysia to consider investing in SMART City Kazan and Innopolis, two priority development projects launched by the republic to create needed investment infrastructure and platforms for the development of the republic’s business services, the service industry, and IT industry.

The Tatarstan President noted that SMART City Kazan and Innopolis are close analogs to two recent Malaysian development projects, Medini Iskandar and Cyberjaya. The chief architect of SMART City Kazan is Norliza Hashim, Managing Director of the Malaysian firm APUDG.

“We are closely studying the experience of your country in developing new cities – we are walking in your footsteps, so to speak,” President Minnikhanov told the former Prime Minister of Malaysia. “When we see such results that your country shows, we understand that we need to roll up our sleeves and work harder.”

The Tatarstan visit to Malaysia continues today with meetings with a range of Malaysian business development organizations and institutes of higher education, including Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA), Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation (MATRADE), Multimedia Development Corporation (MDC), Malaysian Life Sciences Capital Fund (MLSCF), International Islamic University Malaysia, Universiti Putra Malaysia, University of Malaysia, and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.

Bilateral investment opportunities available between the two states will also be explored today during the Tatarstan-Malaysia Investment Seminar. President Minnikhanov and Malaysian Minister of International Trade and Industry Dato’ Seri Mustapa Bin Mohamed are both scheduled to participate in the seminar.

The Tatarstan delegation will also pay a visit to Cyberjaya today, an IT-focused science park that serves as the core of the Malaysian Multimedia Super Corridor. Tomorrow, the Tatarstan delegation will visit Medini Iskandar, a 9.3 square kilometer Smart city within Iskandar Malaysia, a development corridor in the south of Malaysia.

According to Tatarstan Investment Development Agency Chief Executive Linar Yakupov, the three-day visit will play an important role towards furthering the trajectory of bilateral collaboration set during President Minnikhanov’s last visit to Malaysia in 2010. Following that visit, foreign investment from Malaysia into Tatarstan increased from $741,100 to $950,000 in 2011. The first three quarters of 2012 saw $568,000 investment into Tatarstan from Malaysia.

In December, a head of agreement was signed that will see Malaysian investment company Aliran Idaman acquire Shamovsky Hospital, a historical landmark in Tatarstan’s capital of Kazan. The Malaysian company plans to refurbish the building an international standard palace style hotel. The total investment in this project is expected to be roughly 20 million Euros.

The Republic of Tatarstan is a semi-autonomous region within the Russian Federation with a population of 3.8 million. The republic has been the subject of praise for its pro-business investment climate over the past few years. Most recently, in November the Social Opinion Research Laboratory ranked the republic first among Russia’s 83 regions in terms of friendliness towards business.

From January to September 2012, Tatarstan attracted $420 million of foreign investment, of which $334 million is Foreign Direct Investment, an FDI figure that is 4.3 times larger than the corresponding one in 2011. The republic currently boasts nearly 1300 companies with the participation of foreign capital, of which more than 600 are completely owned by foreign investors.

Tatarstan Investment Development Agency Press Service