eSky marketing team will participate at the Langkawi International Dialogue ( LID ) 2011 and Malaysia African Business Forum 2011 at Putrajaya Malaysia.

The Government of Malaysia will host the 9th Langkawi International Dialogue from 19 to 21 June 2011 in Putrajaya. This year will mark the first time that the dialogue will be held outside of Langkawi unlike the previous Dialogues. This is based on the feedback and request of the participating countries who wanted to see the developments of Putrajaya, Cyberjaya and Kuala Lumpur. This Dialogue will be the first Langkawi International Dialogue hosted by YAB Dato’ Seri Mohd Najib Tun Abdul Razak.

The theme for LID 2011 is “Enhancing Smart Partnership for Socio-Economic Transformation”. This year’s dialogue will focus on efforts to transform and advance the Smart Partnership dialogue towards enhancing socio-economic development of the participating countries.

LID is part of the Smart Partnership Dialogue series, which promotes the principles, and practice of the ‘Smart Partnership’ approach to creative cooperation between Government and other sectors contributing to socio-economic activities. ‘Smart Partnership’ is an innovative concept that is based on a positive ethos of ‘prosper thy neighbour’ for ‘win-win’ situations. Since the first LID in 1995, the Dialogue has become an important platform for a free-flow of ideas and exchange of information among the participating countries. For LID 2011, Malaysia’s home grown concepts/pillars of 1Malaysia which focuses of People First, Performance Now; Government Transformation Programme (GTP); Economic Transformation Programme (ETP); and the New Economic Model (NEM) will be showcased to the leaders. Malaysia believes that new and innovative ideas on transformation and socio-economic policies will emerge from the LID 2011 for mutual benefit. In order for LID to be relevant for the new global challenges, LID 2011 will be conducted based on a new modality among others, introduction of Retreat and Plenary sessions for the Heads of State/Government.

This year’s Dialogue has been designed with the objective of expanding the existing social and economic network between Malaysia and the participating countries from Africa and the Caribbean. The Dialogue Forum Sessions, which is the newly introduced format for LID 2011, will discuss on three topics namely “Realising National Visions Through Socio-Economic Transformation”, “Innovative Financing for Transformation” and “Poverty Eradication”. This Session will be held on the first day of the LID 2011 whereby Hon. Prime Minister of Malaysia, The Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, Heads of State/Government and emminent personalities will be the panelists for the Session.

Among the changes and value-added enhancements that will be put forth for this year’s LID is the convening of Malaysia-Africa Business Forum which has been the missing link from the previous Dialogues which will be held on 18 June 2011. The theme of the forum, “Exploring New Dimensions” reflects the importance of developing economic and business relations between Malaysia and Africa with the current geopolitical developments. The Forum which will be officiated by the Hon Deputy Prime Minister will also hear the keynote address by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. There would be presentations by leading speakers from Malaysia and Africa on the various topics and the prospect and potential of doing business with Africa.

The ‘Dialogue in the Field’ is another new segment of LID 2011, has been prepared for the LID 2011 participants which they would be involved in field visits and workshops at various venues such as PROTON, SIRIM and Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) based on the five sub-issues namely on “The Business of Agriculture”, “Competitiveness in Manufacturing”, “Promoting ICT Enterprises”, “Nurturing SME start-ups in biotechnology” and “Climate Change and Sustainable Development”. The outcome of the field trips will be reported to the Leaders during the Plenary Session.

For the first time also, a Retreat Session will be held for the Heads of State/Government to exchange views in regard to the current issues on “Food and Energy Security”, “Social Media for Transformation” and “Future Direction of LID/Smart Partnership”. The Hon. Prime Minister of Malaysia will also be sharing his idea on the “Global Movement of the Moderates” which he introduced during the 65th United Nations General Assembly last year.

Albeit the new changes and format, LID 2011 will continue its tradition of being an important medium which encourage free-flow of ideas and exchange of information among developing countries. Malaysia believes that LID 2011 will make significant and lasting contributions towards achieving its goals of smart partnership and finding feasible solutions in addressing the various issues. The LID series that was held previously had proven the results whereby the trade and business figures between Malaysia and countries in African continent had significantly increased and for the year 2010 alone, it has increased by 39%. The African continent is seen as the economic resurgence since a decade ago especially between the year 2001 and 2010, where the African continent’s GDP was 5.2% per year, which was higher from the Global GDP rate which is 4.2%. The enhancement and value-added changes to the format and programme of LID 2011 is one of the strategic measures for Malaysia to strengthen the ties between Malaysia and countries from Africa and Caribbean. The outcome of the Dialogue will be concluded in the ‘Outcome Document – The Way Forward LID 2011’.

This LID is expected to draw about 500 participants both international and local. To date we already have 200 registered participants and are expecting more to register within these coming days. The participants include the Heads of State/Government, senior officials, representatives from public and private sectors, media, academicians and NGOs from developing countries especially from the African continent and Caribbean. The Heads of State/Government are expected to take this opportunity to have bilateral discussions with Hon. Prime Minister of Malaysia to exchange views on regional and international issues.

LID 2011 is organized by Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Malaysia in collaboration with Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, Malaysia.

For information on the Langkawi International Dialogue, please visit http://lid2011.kln.gov.my

SOURCE: MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS MALAYSIA