Chinese firms making Chinese brands shine in Malaysia

Over 600 years ago, Renowned Chinese navigator Zheng He visited Malacca, now a historical city of Malaysia, for five times during his seven transoceanic expeditions around the Indian Ocean, which pushed the ancient maritime Silk Road to its climax.

Today, with China's initiatives to build the Silk Road economic belt and a 21st-century maritime Silk Road, known for short as the Belt and the Road, Malaysia's strategic location will be quite crucial once again.

As the most direct participants in the construction of the new Silk Road, Chinese enterprises are playing a more and more important role, making great contribution to bilateral trade between China and Malaysia.

In the process of promoting their independent innovation capacity and accelerating their industrial upgrading, these Chinese companies have gradually changed Malaysian people's prejudice on the Chinese brands, and successfully earned good reputations for themselves.

According to Chinese customs the statistics, trade between China and Malaysia in 2013 reached 106.08 billion U.S. dollars, increasing 11.9 percent from a year earlier. China has been Malaysia's largest trading partner for five consecutive years, while Malaysia has been China's largest trading partner among ASEAN nations for six consecutive years.

As the two countries have set the target of expanding annual bilateral trade to 160 billion dollars by 2017, Chinese companies will get more opportunities for further development.

ZTE Malaysia is one of the Chinese companies that have recorded a successful performance in Malaysia. Established on Feb. 16, 2004, it has been awarded as one of the top Multimedia Super Corridor companies by the Malaysian government.

ZTE Malaysia has become a business partner with Malaysia's largest integrated solution provider Telekom Malaysia (TM), Malaysian converged telecommunications, broadband and 4G service provider Packet One Networks (P1), Malaysian 3G mobile telecommunications service provider U Mobile, and Malaysian mobile service provider DiGi Telecommunications (DiGi).

Chinese companies also have increased input in Malaysia's cultural industries. As a major development of it, Malacca, the historical city of Malaysia, will become the first city outside China to stage outdoor folk musicals under the title Impression, a series of performances that combine local culture, folk stories and spectacular scenery produced under the branding of China's famous film director Zhang Yimou.

With a total investment of some 91.47 million U.S. dollars, Impression Melaka, a project between Malaysia's PTS Impression Sdn Bhd and China Impression Wonders Art Development Co Ltd, is expected to attract 1.2 million tourist arrivals and enhance Malacca's growth by approximately 3.7 percent.