TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Allowing Taiwan to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) will benefit Malaysia by eliminating tariffs and attracting more Taiwanese businesses to invest in the Southeast Asian country, an opinion piece in a Malaysian newspaper said Thursday (July 30).

The article in the English-language Sun Daily was signed by Jack Su, a senior adviser to the Taiwanese office in Kuala Lumpur, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office.

He describes how the two countries already enjoy close relations, with Taiwan ranking as Malaysia’s seventh-largest trading partner and as fifth on its list of foreign direct investors.

The two share interests in the sectors of electronics, biotechnology, green energy, and information and communication technology, Su wrote. Taiwan supplies electrical components and mechanical parts that end up in products made in Malaysia by the more than 1,750 Taiwanese companies that have invested there.

However, the absence of a preferential trade agreement means that tariff and non-tariff barriers still exist, Su said. In this regard, Taiwan’s inclusion in the CPTPP would help Malaysia to improve its production capacity and quality by attracting more Taiwanese investors to turn the country into their Southeast Asian production base, according to the opinion piece.