3 - Developing People-to-People Contacts

Summary

When Datuk Seri Najib Razak, Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, called on President Nathan in April 2005 during the Presidential visit, he emphasized the importance of people-to-people ties. He said, “We should encourage more visits, more tourist arrivals from Singapore and Malaysia and vice versa, and explore ways to…look at opportunities in third countries”. He mentioned that Singapore was the second largest foreign investor in Malaysia in 2005, and cited cooperation in areas such as trade and investment, tourism and defence, and even ties between universities on each side of the Causeway.

As mentioned earlier, during his visit to Malaysia in April 2005, Lee Kuan Yew suggested a limited circulation of each other's newspapers on both sides of the Causeway be allowed after an almost 30-year long ban. This is one way of boosting people-to-people contact between the two neighbours and further improve overall ties. He said, “Let's not push it. This is some idea tossed out to maintain knowledge and intimacy with each other…. We read Indonesian papers. We ought to be able to read Malaysian papers…. They [the Malaysian newspapers editors] saw a potential market, expansion with the market, getting themselves wider readership, why not?” Abdullah Badawi responded by saying that they would consider the suggestion to ease the three decade ban on each other's newspapers. He said, “I will talk to my [Cabinet] colleagues; we can consider it.”

Singapore Press Holdings, which publishes Straits Times, Business Times and other newspapers, responded positively to the suggestion. “SPH welcomes the opportunity for Singapore and Malaysia newspapers to circulate in each other's country as this would help people on both sides to keep up with developments in the two countries and foster better understanding and bilateral ties…. Free flow of information as a result of a lifting of the restriction will constitute closer people-topeople relations.” Bursa Malaysia chief, Yusli Mohamad Yusoff said that removing the long-standing ban could also help facilitate crosstrading between the two countries' stock exchanges since lifting the ban would get both sets of investors familiar with companies as they would read about them regularly. To date, this suggestion by Lee Kuan Yew has not yet resulted in the lifting of the newspaper ban.