KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 27): The 13th Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle (IMT-GT) Summit, which aims at strengthening the consensus and socio-economic cooperation framework of the three countries,  will be held virtually on Thursday, Oct 28.

IMT-GT Joint Business Council (JBC) Malaysia chairman Tan Sri Rozali Ismail said the summit would be attended by Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob as current chairman of the IMT-GT, Indonesian President Joko Widodo, and Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha.

“This summit is a milestone to strengthen the consensus and socio-economic cooperation framework of the three member states established over 28 years ago, in line with the spirit of ASEAN consensus.

“JBC Malaysia, together with the business community in general, hopes this conference can reach a decision in moving policies and programmes quickly to revive the economy, explore high-impact priority areas, and increase the confidence of the business community to reinvest in the severely affected economic sectors,” he said in a statement.

Rozali said the council was optimistic that IMT-GT leaders would mutually agree to increase vaccination initiatives in their respective countries and were ready to implement the next steps to reopen their economy, borders and cross-country travel in the near future.

“JBC Malaysia hopes the leaders of this summit will make a commitment to implement a number of fiscal and administrative policies by providing incentives to the business sector to remain open based on new business-friendly norms.

“The support of governments of member states is highly sought in strengthening cross-border business and transaction digitisation initiatives, reducing bureaucracy, and improving the efficiency of managing trade and human movements at borders, as well as strengthening health security in member states,” he added.

Rozali said the council together with fellow members from Indonesia and Thailand had agreed in supporting the efforts of member states to revive their respective economies.

“The ultimate goal of the initiative is the recovery of the micro and small and medium enterprise (MSME) economic sector which makes up 90% of the entire business community,” he said.

Source: The Edge Malaysia