Australia seeks better trade ties with Malaysia

Australia seeks better trade ties with Malaysia

DARWIN (Reuter): Australia pushed yesterday for increased trade with Malaysia in the first meeting between the new conservative government and Malaysian leader Mahathir Mohamad.

Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told reporters his 50-minute meeting with the Malaysian Prime Minister, ahead of talks between Mahathir and Australian leader John Howard on Friday, was "very positive, warm, and easy".

Downer said the pair discussed updating a 40-year-old trade agreement between the two countries, an Australian bid for a US$1.5 billion Malaysian navy contract and regional security.

"It was a very, very productive introductory meeting," said Downer, whose conservative Liberal-National Government was sworn in just two weeks ago after ousting the former Labor administration in a March 2 election.

Mahathir did not speak to reporters, leaving directly for a visit to New Zealand.

Downer also lobbied for Australian engineering firm Transfield's bid for the US$1.5 billion contract to build up to 27 offshore patrol vessels for the Malaysian navy.

"It is a good bid, they are offering a very good deal, so I am optimistic without being certain," Downer said.

Transfield, a privately owned company, is a frontrunner for the contract, one of Asia's biggest pending defense deals, due to be decided within months.

The Australian Government also weighed into one of the country's most controversial child custody battles, pledging to fight for an Australian mother's rights to contact her children living in Malaysia with their father, a Malaysian prince.

Downer said he did not personally raise the issue with Mahathir, but had ordered Australian officials to ask the Malaysian government to consider allowing an independent moderator to look at the case.

Australian mother Jacqueline Gillespie has not spoken to her son Iddin, 12, and daughter Shah, 10, since they were taken from Australia by their father, Kamarul Bahrin Shah, during a custody visit in 1992.

Mahathir's visit, for a brief refuelling stop, was his first to Australia in 12 years.

Relations between the two fellow British Commonwealth members have begun improving recently, after a decade of bitter disputes between Mahathir and former Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating and his predecessor Bob Hawke.