Log export ban to be permanent
KOTA KINABALU: Sabah is looking to turn the state's temporary export ban on round logs into a permanent one, revealed Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Seri Panglima Wilfred Madius Tangau.
Tangau said the ministry and the Malaysian Timber Industry Board (MTIB) in its task force would come up with a working paper to propose the move to the state cabinet as history had shown that a temporary ban cannot 'comfort' and attract investors to come and establish their footing in Sabah.
"We are looking to make sure that this is indeed a permanent ban. A permanent ban will give a lot of comfort to investors from all over the world to come to Sabah. If it is not a permanent ban then investors will not have comfort and they will not be able to see a future (here)," he said after an MTIB courtesy call and briefing at Wisma Kewangan here yesterday.
"If you look at the past, you put on a ban and investors came but then after that you take it back. When there is no more ban, the industry is not getting the kind of raw materials that they need.
"From an industry point of view and investment point of view, we want to make sure that this will indeed be a permanent thing. What we have done is that we have formed a task force and we want to bring MTIB. MTIB will be playing a key role in the task force and with this we'll bring back to cabinet to present to them, including some historical things," explained Tangau, who is Sabah Trade and Industry Minister.
To support the establishment of downstream industries such as furniture manufacturers, Tangau said Sabah would also leverage on its 1.55 million hectares of oil palm estate land and optimize the potential using oil palm stems as timber.
MTIB director general Dato' Dr Jalaluddin stressed that Sabah must go beyond its reliance on timber from its natural forests so investors would have a continuous and reliable supply of raw materials.
"Eighty percent of our (Malaysia) furniture export last year came from rubber wood and Sabah also have a significant quantity of rubber wood," he said.
"We have to look at alternative materials. So the big alternative materials, the biggest amount is oil palm stem. As of 2017, Sabah has 1.55 million hectare of oil palm estate versus the next biggest one, which is Sarawak's 1.51 million (hectare). It has put Sabah in a prime position."
According to Jalaluddin, especially in the last five years, MTIB had been pursuing the production sawn timber, veneer and plywood from oil palm.
With close cooperation with companies from Germanu, he said MTIB had been able to address key issues on tooling which had enabled it to produce more sawn timber and plywood from oil palm stem at a very competitive rate.
"This is something I feel that Sabah is in a very good position to capitalize, and let's work on this besides timber from the natural forest, timber from the plantation forest, we also have oil palm in abundance so I think if we combine this, Sabah is in a very good position," said Jalaluddin.
"We need to have some policy that cannot be made overnight. We have to carefully look into all aspects, all angles, from upstream, midstream until the marketing part. We have to integrate this.
"We cannot just work using antiquated 1970s, 80s, 90s sort of equipment (as) we won't be competitive. This is where technological infusion using our local based resources is very critical and we must identify the right sort of manufacturing for value added.
Jalaluddin said Malaysia's export value was RM23.22 billion in total, RM10 billion being the value of furniture export.
"For your information, Peninsular Malaysia has banned export of 27 species of round logs a long time ago.
"The (export of round log) value was RM206 million for 2017 (from Sabah). For comparison, in 2007, Sabah exported RM445 million. So there was a decline," he said.
"But whatever supply we have, we have to optimize it for domestic consumption," emphasized