KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said on Monday that oil major Saudi Aramco will invest $7 billion in a mammoth oil processing hub in Malaysia, making it the single largest investor in the Southeast Asian country.

The announcement came on the second day of a visit by Saudi King Salman, who is on a multi-nation tour to boost economic ties with Asia.

Najib said Aramco and Malaysia’s national oil company Petronas, which is leading the project, will sign the agreement on Tuesday.

“This is a significant investment and more details will be announced tomorrow,” Najib told a news conference after meeting with the king. He said Aramco’s investment is a “strong vote of confidence” in Malaysia’s economy and that bilateral relations are at an “all-time high.”

The Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development hub is being developed at a total cost of $27bn in Malaysia’s southern Johor state bordering Singapore and is due to start operations in 2019. It includes a refinery with the capacity to churn out 300,000 barrels of oil a day and a petrochemical complex with a production capacity of 7.7 million tonnes.

Earlier on Monday, Malaysian and Saudi Arabian officials signed several other agreements on trade, human resources and scientific and educational cooperation. In 2016, bilateral trade rose 28pc from a year earlier to 14bn ringgit.

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2017