Sabah is benefiting much from the strong bilateral ties between China and Malaysia, said newly assigned Chinese consul-general to Sabah, Liang Caide.

He said the relationship of the two countries have opened many opportunities with Sabah seeing a surge in Chinese tourist arrivals.

"Our relationship is growing at a rapid pace with exchanges in culture and education aspects being carried out extensively.

"The tourism sector is also moving fast with Chinese visitors coming to Malaysia including Sabah" Liang said after paying a courtesy visit on Head of State Tun Dr Haji Juhar Datuk Mahiruddin at the Istana here yesterday. According to Liang, Malaysia received 2.2 million Chinese travelers last year, and the number is expected to increase to three million this year.

"For Sabah, the State had played host to 318,000 Chinese tourists last year and we are expecting the number of tourist arrivals from China to touch 415,000 this year" he said.

Liang who arrived in the state capital on Sept 13, said that the success was made possible due to the good and strong ties between both nations.

He also disclosed that Sabah and Zhejiang Province will sign a memorandum of understanding to seal the sister city ties between Kota Kinabalu y and Hangzou in November. The understanding was reached in July.

"The sister city tie will again create a new step forward between Malaysia and China as another platform for us to bring our relations to another level of friendship" he said.

The sister city tie-up will also give opportunity to investors to come to Sabah. It has been reported that Malaysia and China can achieve their goal of US$160bil (RM694bil) in bilateral trade in the next two years

According to China's data, bilateral trade between the two countries totalled about US$100bil (RM433bil) last year. Liang is the second Chinese consul general after Chen Peijie who served from Jan 30, 2015 until July 9 this year.