CRI听力:Malaysian lawyers help Chinese expats with legal affairs

Currently, the annual trade volume between Malaysia and China is over 100 billion U.S. dollars. Nearly two million Chinese tourists will visit the southeastern Asian country in 2016.

Thousands of Chinese students are studying in Malaysia and the country is seeing an increase in Chinese investments.

The significant number of Chinese in Malaysia undoubtedly face legal problems when working and living abroad.

To cope with that, a group of Malaysian lawyers have teamed up with their Chinese counterparts to help each others' overseas compatriots.

Loh Chang Woo, president of the Malaysia-China Legal Cooperation Society, said that Malaysian lawyers are available for Chinese businessmen, especially investors from small- and medium-sized enterprises that have no in-house legal counsel.

"We are facing a different legal culture, and the investing committee must be educated. When they face a problem, we will be there to help them. We want to encourage more SMEs to invest in Malaysia. We want to give them peace of mind when they are in Malaysia."

Taetea Group, a Chinese tea company, welcomes the move, as its deputy director Huang Weizhong said legal issues are unavoidable for Chinese business abroad.

With professional services from the Malaysia-China Legal Cooperation Society, Huang said their business will have better overall development.

The Legal Cooperation Society has also set up a hotline for Chinese citizens in Malaysia.

Thomas Chin, a consultant at the Advisory Center For Chinese Living Abroad In Malaysia, said generally there are five major issues affecting Chinese citizens.

"Immigration issues, like visa expiration, or overstays in Malaysia; that would be the first one. Then the second one would be regarding employment issues. The third matter would be marital issues. The fourth one would be some cheating cases in Malaysia. The last one will be some students facing problems in Malaysia, for example, tenancy problems, they have some disputes with the landlord."

As China's 'One Belt, One Road' initiative has involved dozens of countries with different languages and legal systems, experts say the Malaysia example is worth following up by others in boosting cooperation.

For CRI, this is Zhao Jianfu.