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.