MALAYSIA, GATEWAY FOR INDIA TO ASEAN, SAYS ENVOY

KUALA LUMPUR, April 21 (Bernama) -- India believes that Malaysia serves as
an important gateway for India to make its presence felt in Asean, Indian High
Commissioner to Malaysia Vijay K. Gokhale said Tuesday.

He said Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stated that Malaysia had a
great advantage over many other countries in the Asean region or East Asia
because English was widely used by its people.

"Our prime minister believes that Malaysia is the gateway to Asean for
India. We have so much in common, including being English-speaking (society),
having a formal British colonial system of law and the education (system) is the
same.

"When there is a different culture in another country, it is difficult to do

business with them," he said after launching a book entitled "Mahatma Ghandi:
Imaging Peace, Truth and Ahimsa", here, Tuesday night.

Therefore, Gokhale said, the Indian Culture Centre (ICC) was set up at
Capsquare, Jalan Munshi Abdullah, in February this year to promote Indian
culture to visitors.

"We want to substantively upgrade the quality of India-Malaysia
relations.

"We will also arrange a lot of cultural activities here to develop the
relationship between the two countries," he said.

On top of that, through the relationship, Vijay hopes to see more Malaysians
visit India not only to do business but also as tourists.

Currently, Malaysia received 700,000 tourists from India while less than
200,000 Malaysians visited India, he said.

-- BERNAMA



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