Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Abdul Rahman Dahlan said he was at the right place and the right time when the US$7 billion deal with Saudi Aramco did not progress as expected.

Abdul Rahman said the prime minister had ordered him to Riyadh at the end of 2016, after negotiations for the deal, which had gone on for around two years, were progressing very slowly.

"I asked them (what was the problem). Even though they did not want to be direct in the meeting, but outside the meeting, they told me they were worried about our country's economic situation [...]

"We are lucky because the Saudi Aramco-Petronas deal was sort of a government-to-government (negotiation) as Saudi Aramco is wholly-owned by the Saudi Arabian government while Petronas is wholly-owned by the Malaysian government.

"Therefore I, as the minister, had the opportunity to be the referee for both sides. Because I was there at the right time, the right place, I managed to reduce the gap of misunderstanding," he said at the Peneraju Professional Chartered Financial Analyst Annual Summit in Shah Alam today...