Investment, trade and industry minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz said these opportunities were among the topics discussed during his meeting with UK secretary of state for foreign, Commonwealth and development affairs David Lammy.

“Together, we can drive economic growth that is both resilient and innovative,” he said in a post on social media platform X today.

The UK officially became a member of the CPTPP last December, marking the first free trade agreement between that country and Malaysia.

Its entry into the CPTPP will swell the combined gross domestic product value of the bloc to US$15.4 trillion (RM64.4 trillion) or 15% of the global GDP.

The CPTPP members are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam

On Thursday, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim received a courtesy call from Lammy aimed at strengthening bilateral ties, which have been elevated to a strategic partnership following Anwar’s meeting with UK prime minister Keir Starmer in January.

In a separate post on X, Anwar said Malaysia welcomes close cooperation with the UK in a variety of fields, including investment, energy transition, education, climate change, defence, digitalisation, and artificial intelligence.

Tengku Zafrul also said the high-level delegations from Australia, Pakistan, Turkey and Palestine which visited Anwar recently underscored Malaysia’s commitment to strengthening trade and investment ties with strategic partners from across continents.

He said these discussions focused on reviewing various free trade agreements and expanding the Malaysia-Turkey Free Trade Agreement into the services and investment sectors.