Rustam Minnikhanov meets Prime Minister of Malaysia Anwar Ibrahim

On 11 December before the field meeting of the Strategic Vision Group “Russia-the Islamic world” in Kuala Lumpur , the Rais (Head) of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov, who came on a working trip to Malaysia,  and the Prime Minister of Malaysia Anwar Ibrahim had a brief meeting where Rustam Minnikhanov thanked the Prime Minister for organization and personal participation in the Group meeting and emphasized: “Experience of your country in many spheres, its well-developed market of Islamic finances, Halal products and services raise big interest all over the world including Russia. We hope that Russia-Malaysia relations will develop further and Tatarstan is ready to facilitate this process.” 

He reminded that it was in Kuala Lumpur that 20 years ago at a meeting of the OIC Russian President Vladimir Putin made a statement on Russia's accession to the Organization of Islamic Conference as an observer and added that he hoped that the Group meeting will become an important step in further development of cooperation of Russia with the Islamic world

Rustam Minnikhanov said that Tatarstan is an export-oriented republic with the mighty industrial capacity and informed that the amount of trade turnover still remain low – 61m dollars US. He also told that there are agreement reached on sales of Tatarstan products in Malaysia, on accreditation in the Halal issues, academic cooperation and implementation of priciples of Islamic banking in Russia.

The Rais of the republic also proposed the Malaysian Prime Minister to have one of the meetings of the inter-governmental commission on economic, scientific and technical and cultural cooperation between Malaysia and Russia in Kazan.

In his turn, welcoming Rustam Minnikhanov, Anwar Ibrahim stressed the importance of strengthening the cooperation between Russia and Malaysia. “We are happy with the progress of the development of our relations with Russia and Tatarstan as one of its successful regions. It is strengthening not only within the framework of BRICS but is built of reliable bilateral relations,: he emphasized.