Business and political leaders from Sussex and Selangor, in Malaysia, have agreed to strengthen commercial ties after a delegation visited Crawley as part of efforts to boost trade between the two regions.
The chief minister for Selangor led the delegation from Malaysia’s most populous state which is also the country’s main industrial and commercial hub.
The delegation from Invest Selangor included not just political leaders but investment officials and business executives and they met a group of counterparts from Invest Gatwick Diamond.
The Gatwick Diamond is an economic region centred around the airport and stretching from Brighton in the south to the edge of London. It has a population of 1.5 million and about 45,000 businesses that contribute £42 billion a year to the British economy.
The two trade bodies identified several areas for future links and collaboration including aerospace, sustainable aviation, logistics, advanced manufacturing, digital technology, innovation and skills development.
Invest Gatwick Diamond and Invest Selangor agreed a framework aimed at promoting investment opportunities, encouraging trade links and supporting companies that are looking to establish or expand operations in Britain and Malaysia.
Invest Gatwick Diamond executive director Brett North said: “We want businesses in the Gatwick Diamond to have practical routes into one of South East Asia’s strongest economies while making it easier for Malaysian companies to explore opportunities here.”
The Gatwick Diamond delegation included the leader of Brighton and Hove City Council, Bella Sankey, who also chairs the recently formed Sussex and Brighton Strategic Authority.
Councillor Sankey said that, with three universities and a group of further education colleges, Sussex was producing the skilled, ambitious apprentices and graduates that growing companies need.
There were nearly 74,000 businesses innovating in areas such as advanced manufacturing, AI and electronics, she said.
And they were all located within an hour of London with two major ports and the country’s second busiest airport.
There was no better place in the country to invest, she said, adding: “The businesses that come to Sussex and Brighton find a dynamic economy of real strength and depth and a quality of life that means their people choose to stay.
“We hope today is the beginning of a long relationship between Sussex and Malaysia.”
The Selangor and Gatwick Diamond trade bodies met at the Crawley Innovation Centre last month.
They had hoped to conclude their framework agreement to coincide with a new airline service from Gatwick to Kuala Lumpur four times a week starting tomorrow (Thursday 27 August).
But, according to Aerospace Global News, the airline has since removed the service from its schedule and tickets are no longer available on their website.
No official reason was given for the cancellation but the start of the service, which included a stop in Bahrain, is understood to have been postponed because of the conflict in Iran and the Middle East.
