Malaysian joint ventures

Press, 25 November 1982, Page 28

Malaysian joint ventures

NZPA staff correspondent Hong Kong New Zealand firms were unlikely to get business in Malaysia unless they were prepared to enter into joint ventures with local partners, said the leader of an Export Institute of New Zealand trade mission to South-East Asia, Mr Robert Walters. The 18-man mission arrived in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta after 12 days in Malaysia and. Brunei. It has been to the east Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak and also had discussions with senior Federal Government officials in Kuala Lumpur. The final week of the 23-

day mission will be spent.in Jakarta and Singapore. - Mr Walters said from Jakarta that the mission was concerned largely with factfinding, and while in Malaysia had been interested to learn from state governments of their development plans over the next five years. “They have to put their projects up to the Federal Government for approval, but once they get the approvals they are relatively free to choose the method by which they spend the money,” he said. The mission membership had a wide spread of consultants who could see prospects

for work in projects such as reading, . bridge building, water drainage, and town planning: Mr Walters, who is corporate export "inanager for Alex Harvey Industries, said Malaysia would require a considerable quantity of. building materials in the coming year. . “I do not think we are really touching the potential there,” he said. • • i In spite of a so-called : downturn in the Malaysian i economy, growth was still < projected at an annual rate i of 6 per cent and two-thirds 5, of the building ; materials/.' 1 market appeared to be wide- I open. I

Mr Walters said officials in Kuala Lumpur had made the point that to compete in the Malaysian market, foreign firms needed to be in joint,ventures, either project-by-project, or in a more permanent/set-up. “Without- that, New Zealand firms will not be suer, cessful,” he said. ' / Some of the companies represented on the missldh already had joint ventures in Malaysia 1 and several not doing work, there now might ' establish joint • as result of the mission’s'visit.' •“We have been, jyell received arid it has certainly, been a worth-while mission, he said. :