Malaysia can learn a lot from China, ranging from innovative entrepreneurs to dealing with unemployment, according to Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

"We feel that China has a lot to teach us. Malaysia, as you know, has the Look East Policy.

"We have been looking at all East Asian countries and at one time, we proposed that there should be an eastern community, an East Asian economic community, but for some reason or another, it could not be implemented.

"Whether it is implemented or not, we gain a lot from working together. We believe in the cooperation between countries and certainly, we believe in cooperation with China because China has a lot that would be beneficial to us," he said.

Mahathir was speaking at a joint press conference with Chinese premier Li Keqiang in Beijing today.

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Talking about his visit to Hangzhou earlier, Mahathir said there were numerous innovative entrepreneurs in China with new ideas of doing business.

"I noticed that China now has entrepreneurs and they are all innovative. They have come up with new ideas of doing business and these new ideas can also be applied to Malaysia.

"That is why on the way here we stopped at Hangzhou, where we met Jack Ma of Alibaba and we learned a lot from him," he added.

Mahathir also said Putrajaya wants to learn from China on solving unemployment and felt that Chinese investments in Malaysia can help with regard to this problem.

"I cannot imagine that a country this size not having unemployment problems, but China has been able to resolve most of these problems.

"We can learn from China because we are interested in solving our unemployment problem, and we feel that with Chinese investments in Malaysia, part of this problem can be resolved.

"It is not just a big market, it is also a rich market created by dynamic people who have been able to ensure this huge country with a huge population is not affected by unemployment,” he added.

Mahathir, who is on a five-day official visit to China, is scheduled to return to Kuala Lumpur tomorrow.