ABSTRACT
International trade plays an important role in the development process in Malaysia particularly in transforming the economy from a low income to upper-middle income category. For many decades the United States of America, The European Union (EU) and Japan were Malaysia’s major trading partners. However, after the 2008/09 world economic and financial crises, this trend has changed where Malaysia’s major exporting and importing nations have tilted more towards other new markets and non-traditional countries such as China (MITI, 2010). Under the New Economic Model (NEM), the Malaysian government has embarked on a new strategy to shift its trade dependency on the traditional markets and exploring new markets for exports and imports. One of the markets being targeted is the Middle Eastern countries. Trade relationship between Malaysia and the OIC countries becoming more relevant especially after the 2008/09 world economic and financial crisis. Therefore it is vital to study and analyze the on-going Malaysia-OIC trade relationship in this context.
