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The first meeting of the Malaysia-Singapore Joint Ministerial Committee on the Iskandar Development Region (IDR) got off to a productive start in Johor Bahru on Monday.
It announced that four task force groups will be formed to further explore the areas of cooperation identified by the Prime Ministers of the two countries during their Langkawi retreat in May.
Warm and fruitful - that is the assessment of the ministers and their delegations of the first meeting of the Joint Ministerial Committee on the IDR.
They also agreed on the committee's terms of reference - to achieve a win-win outcome for both countries.
Four areas of cooperation had been identified for the Joint Ministerial Committee on the Iskandar Development Region to work on.
These are in environmental matters, boosting tourism, facilitating immigration clearance and enhancing transport links.
The committee intends to meet once every quarter to take stock of the work that is being done to further cooperate in these areas.
Mah Bow Tan, Co-chairman, Joint Ministerial Committee, Iskandar Development Project, said: "It is far better to let the task forces sit down together and let them go through some of the possible projects because not every project can be implemented nor can every project be commercially viable. So it is important for us to go through and assess the viability of these various projects."
Effendi Norwawi, Co-chairman, Joint Ministerial Committee, Iskandar Development Project, said: "It has definitely been a very productive meeting, it has been a warm friendly meeting and the meeting concentrate on what are the specific tasks the joint committee can work on from the four areas that they have identified clearly there are very strong potential for collaboration and cooperation.
"Minister Mah has invited our team to look at the river cleaning effort. You know Singapore is very successful in the river cleaning exercise. There is a lot of lessons to learn there and Malaysia could benefit as well, we are going to see how that was done."
The work groups are expected to meet within the next month, so they can present a progress report to the committee's next meeting scheduled for October this year. - CNA/ch
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