"As I stand before you, and make this promise, I will do everything possible to gain evidence, to sign a new contract with [US seabed exploration company] Ocean Infinity for the search to resume as soon as possible," the minister was quoted as saying by the Malay Mail newspaper.
The authorities are now waiting to meet with representatives of Ocean Infinity, who were invited to Malaysia after the company's previous contract to look for the plane wreckage ended in 2018, the minister added.
Ocean Infinity carried out a "no find, no fee" mission to locate the missing passenger jet in the southern Indian Ocean between January and May 2018, a year after an official search by Malaysia, Australia and China yielded no results.
On the night of March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, a Boeing 777-200 with 227 passengers and 12 crew members on board, disappeared from radar during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The plane is believed to have gone down in the southern Indian Ocean. Its crash site has not been found yet.