The United States has reiterated that its fundamental interest in bilateral trade relations with Malaysia remained intact. 

Its Ambassador to Malaysia, Kamala Shirin Lakhdhir, said the fundamental interests involved economic and trade, counter-terrorism and security as well as education. 

"One of my objectives as an ambassador is to increase the number of Malaysian students in the US. This number has decreased due to a lot of historical reasons. 

"We aim to increase the number to strengthen our relationship and to provide Malaysians with very different perspectives," she said during the Corporate Malaysia Roundtable organised by the Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute (ASLI) in Kuala Lumpur today. 

Also present was Asli chief executive officer Dr Micheal Yeoh and Asli director, Ramon Navaratnam. 

The Malaysia-US relations have been largely strong and positive especially in the areas of education, defence and security and regional cooperation over the past 60 years. 

Lakhdhir, who assumed office in January this year, said there were a lot of opportunities for Malaysian students to study in the US and the embassy's goals were to help link the students with American colleges and universities.  

She added that Malaysian students applying for student visas in 2016 had 99 percent approval rate. 

Meanwhile, on economic and trade relations, she said a US trade representative delegation would hold talks with the International Trade and Industry Ministry in mid-July to discuss the trade agenda. 

"This is the first such meeting under the Trump administration. I think this is a good opportunity for both sides to engage and seek an opportunity to improve the relationship going forward," added Lakhdhir.  

In the first five months of 2017, trade with the US increased by 23.3 per cent to RM68.2 billion compared with the same period last year. 

-- Bernama