KUALA LUMPUR (AP) - Malaysia is to help Vietnam set up a 280 hectare industrial area

in Danang, a trade official said on Aug. 28.

Deputy Minister of International Trade and Industry Chua Jui Meng said the Malaysian

South-South Association, or Massa, would plan the project, concentrating on export

products.

Previously, Malaysian investors in Vietnam have focused on the tourist, hotel, banking

and financial sectors.

Chua, speaking to reporters in Johore Bahru, 300 kilometers south of Kuala Lumpur,

said a team made up of Malaysian government ministers and industrialists would look

at the infrastructure in the proposed site in November.

Danang is located on the South China Sea coast.

Chua said the Malaysian government was confident the proposed industries in the zone

would prosper because of low labor cost and the proximity of the airport and seaports.

A week earlier, a high-level German business delegation led by deputy economics minister

Heinrich Kolb said in Kuala Lumpur that the western European economic giant was looking

for investment from Asian countries.

"Our view is increasingly directed to your region (Asia), which has become a

centre of economic vitality in the world," Kolb told reporters after meeting

members of the Malaysian-German Chamber of Commerce.