The nation will benefit in the long term if it continues to be open to foreign expertise. This will help the country to establish its business culture and environment faster, based on international best practice.

There is no conflict between favouring Islamic and traditional values and being more open and international.

The development of our human resources is an area in which we need to do well as it is decisive in determining the success of our diversification programme.

We are considering various ways of making use of our oil and gas downstream industries. This is to be complemented with the import of oil and gas from other sources as raw materials.

We need foreign skills to stay competitive.

The level of our educational development is high and serves as a strong basis for our future progress.

Asean is obviously a very important association for us. Over the past 30 years Asean has made great strides in regional cooperation covering a number of areas, although recently it has been under strain because of the financial crisis and other challenges.