China’s Ambassador to Malaysia Bai Tian has described Malaysia as a blessed land full of talented people, and that he is willing to promote the country, especially Johor Bahru (JB), to attract more Chinese tourists and enterprises.

Bai, who has been in Malaysia for four months after assuming his position in November last year, said Malaysia is truly Asia where all races respect each other's culture and live in harmony.

“I know there is a Malay proverb that goes 'tak kenal maka tak cinta' (you can't love what you don't know) , and the longer I stay here, the deeper I am falling for the country,” he told reporters after visiting and enjoying some street food such as satay, Malay-styled Teow Chew porridge and roti canai at the Taman Sentosa hawker street here, yesterday.

Bai said Malaysia could be a role model of racial unity as the harmony-in-diversity environment is something very rare in the world.

“As the Chinese ambassador to Malaysia, I have the responsiblity to promote China for Malaysians and vice-versa.

“Therefore, I hope I would be able to promote JB to the Chinese people through my visit this time around, for them to visit or invest here, because I can see a huge development potential here in JB, ” he said.

Bai said he learnt that JB had drawn around 800,000 to 900,000 Chinese visitors between 2016 and 2017, and he believed the number would have exceeded one million in 2017.

On his three-day visit to Johor beginning today, Bai visited D&Y Textile (M) Sdn Bhd in Sedenak Industrial Park, Chinese Heritage Museum, Greenland Jade Place and Forest City yesterday.

He is scheduled to visit Iskandar Development Region and Foon Yew High School today and attend the groundbreaking ceremony of Gemas-JB Electrified Double Tracking Project on Tuesday.

– Bernama