The United States Embassy in Malaysia has created a Bahasa Malaysia homepage on its website with the aim of promoting greater understanding between Americans and Malaysians.

This is the US Governments first ever site in Bahasa Malaysia, the embassy said in a press statement today.

The target users include not only Malay language users in Malaysia, but also those in Singapore, Brunei, southern Thailand, Philippines and around the world.

[We want to give readers] greater access to information about the US and topics of interest to them, the embassy said.

It also pointed out the importance of the Internet as an important means of international communication, and even more so in a country like Malaysia which has deep investment in information technology and a knowledge economy.

Visa details

Tagged new on the homepage are Rangkaian keganasan (Network of terrorism) and Umat Islam di Amerika (Muslims in America).

The homepage features selected items from the embassys website, though not all have been fully translated into Bahasa Malaysia.

For example, the section on visa services and admission to the US for immigrants is partly described in Malay, with further and important details in English.

The recent deportation of two Malaysians who were reportedly ill-treated during detention before they were returned to Malaysia, was due to visa discrepancies, according to the US ambassador.