Malaysian envoy bids farewell to Korea posting at National Day reception

Malaysian Ambassador to South Korea said farewell to friends and colleagues in the foreign diplomatic community during a reception celebrating the Southeast Asian nation’s 56th National Day at a hotel in Seoul on Tuesday.

Dato’ Ramlan bin Ibrahim is ending a four-year posting here and said he would return to his home country later this month. He began his posting in March 2009. 

“I will be leaving Korea in less than two weeks to Kuala Lumpur to begin my new assignment at the Foreign Ministry,” Ramlan said during welcome remarks at the reception. He oversaw burgeoning trade and investment relations, and an increase in people-to-people exchanges.

Malaysia celebrated its National Day on Aug. 31. The embassy highlighted its hosting of an important international business summit in which South Korean executives are expected to participate.

Malaysia is hosting the Global Entrepreneurship Summit at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Center from Oct. 11-12. Some 3,000 participants from 50 nations are expected to participate in the summit, including U.S. President Barack Obama.

Since Malaysia adopted its “Look East Policy,” South Korea has increasingly become integral to the Southeast Asian nation’s foreign policy.

Malaysia provides Korea ― the world’s fifth-largest consumer of liquefied natural gas ― with about one-quarter of its LNG, and the Asian nations’ annual two-way trade was $17 billion in 2012.

Korea is also one of Malaysia’s main sources of foreign direct investment with more than 300 projects implemented for a cumulative $3 billion, more than half of which was injected from 2011 to 2012 in 10 projects worth $1.7 billion.

Korea is now Malaysia’s second-largest foreign investor after Japan. Malaysia has in turn invested about $2.6 billion in Korea to date.

Some 35 million tourists visited global top-10 destination Malaysia in 2012, of which 283,000 were from South Korea.

By Philip Iglauer (ephilip2011@heraldcorp.com)