Preparations are underway for high-level meetings between Qatar and Malaysia slated this month and in April, Malaysian embassy charge d’affaires Mohamed Shahir Sabarudin said on the sidelines of a business meeting held at Qatar Chamber yesterday.
Sabarudin said the two meetings to be held on April in Malaysia are offshoots of the visit of Deputy Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail to Qatar in November and His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani’s visit to Malaysia in December. 
Following these visits, Sabarudin said both countries agreed to establish a high-level committee (HLC) at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs “as a mechanism to monitor the implementation of follow-up actions to be taken on the agreements reached by the supreme leaders of both countries.” 
Also, Qatar and Malaysia agreed to hold the second meeting of the joint trade committee (JTC) in Kuala Lumpur from March 28 to 29. The upcoming JTC is expected to strengthen the bilateral partnership between both states and to open new horizons of co-operation to promote Qatar-Malaysia trade volume, Sabarudin said. 
“For the JTC meeting, we are expecting HE the Minister of Commerce and Industry Ali bin Ahmed al-Kuwari to hold a high-level meeting with his Malaysian counterpart,” Sabarudin told Gulf Times.
Sabarudin noted that the bilateral relations between both states “are in a good shape,” in which the interaction between Malaysian and Qatari companies has been further intensified following the high-level visits between Malaysia and Qatar in the fourth quarter of 2018. 
“The visits have strengthened the positive relations between the two countries particularly in the trade and investment sector. The working visits of our deputy prime minister to Qatar last November and His Highness the Amir’s trip to Malaysia in December 2018 have given our bilateral relations a positive trajectory,” he said. 
Qatar Chamber first vice-chairman Mohamed bin Towar al-Kuwari also said Qatar-Malaysia co-operation “has significantly developed over the past few years thanks to the tireless efforts exerted by both leaderships to elevate these relations into higher levels.”
“The visit of His Highness the Amir to Malaysia in December 2018 was a great success. It has contributed to further enhancing bilateral ties between the two countries and ended with signing many MoUs and agreements,” he added.