Himalayan kingdom, Bhutan, which sees Malaysia’s economic success as its inspiration, is keen to have diplomatic relations with the country, its Prime Minister Jigmi Y Thinley said.
“We are inspired by the kind of leadership it has had in the past and continues to have. We are also inspired by the good governance that Malaysia has exhibited in our part of the world,” he told Bernama in an interview.
Bhutan, he said, also admired the way Malaysia has been able to achieve rapid economic development and how the benefits of developments had been fairly well distributed.
“The benefits of Malaysia’s development and economic wealth I think have accrued across all stretches of the Malaysian society. So, we would like to learn from Malaysia,” he said after meeting ambassadors and high commissioners based in Dhaka and New Delhi, who represented 12 countries.
Also present was Malaysia’s High Commissioner to India, Datuk Tan Seng Sung.
Thinley, who acknowledged that Bhutan has been slow in expanding its diplomatic ties, said it would “soon” pursue them with Malaysia.
A landlocked country, Bhutan was deliberately closed to foreigners until 1974. It has since opened up and started establishing diplomatic ties with several countries.
Bhutan has diplomatic relations with Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Serbia and Spain. It also has diplomatic ties with India, Bangladesh, Japan, Nepal, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, the Maldives, Pakistan, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Australia, Brazil, Canada and Vietnam.
Courtesy : Bernama.com
Bhutan doesn’t have diplomatic relatoin with the US???
That’s a big honorable for us as Malaysian to read this news that Malaysia is the inspirational country from Bhutan to learn the development and technology and seeking more co-operation from us here. We here definitely welcoming you (bhutan) as part of the Asian communities and we also hope you welcoming us to your country. One thing here i read about this country (Bhutan) is that this country is practicing Gross National Happiness (GNH) and not Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which is totally different but we do respect for each nations preference.
Not just that, we do really hope that Bhutan can really open the door to us to visit to your country without visa which is Visa Free Travel to Bhutan for Malaysian citizens as what we have heard that to visit Bhutan, the visa charge is really expensive and not many of us are really able to visit your country. We really hope that Bhutan can consider to open the door to us and we definitely open our door here to you to come to Malaysia visit us which we have offered many place of sightseeing available for your view. Currently in south asia that only Maldives offers visa free travel to Malaysian and not the other south asian countries. We hoped Bhutan will be the second south asia country to award us (Malaysian) easier travel restriction. 🙂 Thank You.