LANGKAWI: Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad will seek to secure investments from Japan during his meeting with its prime minister, Shinzo Abe, in Tokyo next week.
Dr Mahathir said the meeting with Abe will be held on the sidelines of the 24th International Conference on the Future of Asia, organised by Nikkei-Shimbun for June 11 and 12.
This will be Dr Mahathir’s first overseas trip since being sworn-in as the seventh prime minister following Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) win in the 14th general election last month.
“I have been going to Japan every year to give a talk at the (conference), but since I am now the new prime minister, I will also be meeting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
“But we will not be talking about anything very substantial. (We will) just be strengthening bilateral relations between Malaysia and Japan, and I (also) want to speak a little about the ‘Look East Policy.’
“Besides that, we will also (touch on) investments from Japan into Malaysia,” he said after attending a meeting with PH leaders here this morning.
On a separate matter, Dr Mahathir, who is also the Langkawi Member of Parliament, said the government is studying the implications of all 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) debts before initiating any negotiation with Abu Dhabi’s International Petroleum Investment Co (IPIC).
“We have yet to reach that stage because at the moment, we are studying the implications of all these loans, the agreements and the terms of the loans,” he said.
Dr Mahathir was replying to a question on whether the government is holding talks with IPIC on reducing 1MDB’s over RM5 billion debt to the company.
