Announcement next week on renewed search for missing MH370

KUALA LUMPUR: The government is in the final phase of negotiations to reach an agreement with companies that may be interested in undertaking a renewed search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 that disappeared almost four years ago, said Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai (pix).

He said more information on the matter would be announced next week.

"We will make an announcement next week. They (the companies engaged in the search) can move their ships once the negotiation details are finalised. Australia and China may be jointly engaged in the search mission," he said.

Liow, who is also the MCA president, spoke to reporters before attending a meeting of the Barisan Nasional Supreme Council at the Putra World Trade Centre here tonight.

He was asked to comment on a report in an international news portal that claimed that the search for MH370 would resume after it was stopped in January last year and that the Malaysian government had identified a company from the United States to lead the mission.

Flight MH370, carrying 239 passengers and crew, disappeared during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014. The fruitless search for the Boeing 777 aircraft in the southern Indian Ocean was discontinued in January last year. — Bernama