KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 30: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz arrived in Kaula Lumpur from Seoul on a three-day visit on Friday evening. During his stay, the PM would sign an ‘Early Harvest Agreement’, that will enable the two countries to boost their trade and economic relations.

He will be the keynote speaker at the inaugural session of the World Islamic Economic Forum on Saturday. The forum is a brainchild of former prime minister of Malaysia Dr Mahatir Mohammed.

Earlier, talking to reporters onboard his special plane, Prime Minister Aziz said that Malaysia was already supporting Pakistan in its bid to get full-dialogue membership of ASEAN.

Malaysia is the chairman of OIC, NAM and ASEAN and the prime minister would take this opportunity to review the progress since his last visit to Malaysia and would urge Malaysian prime minister to use his influence for Pakistan’s full-dialogue membership of ASEAN.

Prime minister Aziz, who has personal relations with the Malaysian prime minister, would urge Mr Badawi to play a lead role in that context.

Under the Early Harvest Agreement (EHA), Pakistan and Malaysia would grant concessional access to 108 and 125 items respectively to each other’s territory and duty tariff would be slashed by 5 per cent.

The EHA would become effective from January 1, 2006 while negotiations of the FTA would continue and would culminate in March 2007.

Pakistan and Malaysia are cooperating with each other in countering terrorism but Mr Aziz would like to institutionalize this cooperation and would take up this matter with his Malaysian counterpart at some stage.

Under an earlier agreement Malaysian airline would start its flight to Lahore, modalities of which would be worked out soon.

Prime Minister Aziz would also stress the need for joint ventures in textiles, food and vegetable processing and packaging. He would also suggest cooperation in precision engineering, fertilizer, electronic, air conditioner making, audio-video, mining and ship-breaking industries and banking and financial sectors. Pakistan and Malaysia also have good relations in the filed of defence.

INVITATION TO INVESTORS: The prime minister on Friday met leading South Korean investors and invited them to participate in bidding for mega development projects in Pakistan.

When President and Chief Executive Officer of Daewoo company, Park Se Heon, called on the PM and expressed their interest in investing in infrastructure and oil and gas sectors in Pakistan, he asked the former to bid for a mega refinery project in Karachi and dams and road construction networks across the coutnry.