KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 25 — The Malaysia-China two-way trade is set to record another new high this year, judging by the first nine months of 2019 performance which has reached US$89.75 billion (US$1=RM4.17), up 11.3 per cent from the same period in 2018.

Malaysia’s special envoy to China Tan Kok Wai said the total trade hit a record high of US$108.6 billion last year, which is 683 times compared with US$159 million in 1974, the year when both countries first established their formal diplomatic ties.

"Malaysia-China trade volume is about one-fifth of the China-United States and one-third of China-Japan trade volume,” he told reporters after the launch of the second China-Malaysia ‘Belt & Road’ Shaanxi Trade Expo here, today.

In addition, Malaysia-China trade volume accounted for one-fifth of the total China-Asean trade.

Earlier in his speech, Tan said the relationship between Malaysia and China is still stepping forward on the right track and set to become deeper, better and stronger.

"Next year is the 2020 Malaysia-China Tourism Year. Malaysians always travel to China and we welcome more Chinese to visit Malaysia,” he added.

Tan said last year, 2.94 million Chinese travelled to Malaysia, an increase of 29 per cent, from 2.28 million the year before.

"This year, it is not a problem to break through the 3.0 million (mark) of Chinese tourists, as for the first six months, we have had a total of 1,558,782 Chinese tourists, which is an increase of 6.4 per cent compared with 1,464,911 in the same period last year,” he added.

Meanwhile, China’s ambassador to Malaysia Bai Tian said Malaysia-China’s bilateral trade volume for the January-October 2019 period had exceeded US$100 billion.

In his speech, he said China has become Malaysia’s largest trading partner for 10 consecutive years.

The China-Malaysia ‘Belt & Road’ Shaanxi Trade Expo is held concurrently with the Private Label Expo (MaPLE 2019) from today to November 27.

A total of 320 exhibitors from Malaysia, China, Oceania, Thailand, and Africa is participating in MaPLE 2019, including 73 exhibitors from China’s Fujian province.

As for the ‘Belt & Road’ trade expo, a total of 92 exhibitors joined the expo, out of which 75 exhibitors are from Shaanxi province and 17 exhibitors from Malaysia. — Bernama