UK hopes to strengthen cooperation with Sabah, Sarawak

KOTA KINABALU: British High Commissioner to Malaysia, Ailsa Terry, hopes to strengthen cooperation with Sabah and Sarawak.

Describing bilateral relations between UK and Malaysia as ‘excellent’, she says, however, that there should be attempts to make it even stronger.

“One of the things I want to do is to build them into a more modern area of partnership around new technology and also to strengthen our cooperation with Sabah and Sarawak,” she said in an interview with The Borneo Post.

She added that the UK had a long history in Sarawak and Sabah, although in recent decades, the UK High Commission had focused more on Peninsular Malaysia.

“I think I want to do more in Sarawak and Sabah in the field of climate, helping to protect diversity as well as help Sabah and Sarawak make their energy transition, and also in terms of increasing trade and investment on the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for TransPacific Partnership (CPTPP).”

She said the CPTPP, which the UK joined last year, could benefit businesses in Malaysia that were exporting to the UK by making tariffs cheaper, adding that the UK planmed on purchasing more products from Malaysia.

Terry also spoke about endeavours in the UK to provide space to producers in the country to use Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO).

“We are working at federal level, but we would like to extend that to Sabah and Sarawak – partly due to the CPTPP, but we work with the Malaysian government to support MSPO, this being the gold standard,” she said.

She added that they were changing the legislation in the UK to make sure that it would give space to producers to use MSPO.

“We don’t recognise any specific country mark, but we say you have to abide by the best sustainability standard in the producer countries, and MSPO is one of the best,” she said.

Terry hoped that this would be a powerful way to grow Malaysian exports and take back the palm oil narrative.

“There have been negative campaigns about it, how it harms you. We are keen to support the Malaysian government because without palm oil, we will cause more damage to the environment by using soy or something else which is more intensive.

“We think sustainable palm oil is the way to go for the future and we want to work with the Malaysia government to help improve export,” she said.