Minister: The way forward for Sabah is bio-economy
KOTA KINABALU: Bio-economy is the way forward for Sabah to achieve a high income economy, in line with the country’s vision to become a developed nation by 2020, said Science, Technology, and Innovation Minister Datuk Seri Madius Tangau.
Tangau said Sabah already had the resources readily available to be exploited to develop a vibrant bio-economy industry, if it could bring in the finance and expertise needed to make it happen.
“We want to create more awareness on the challenge the nation has set for itself, which is to achieve a high income developed nation by 2020, that is to achieve a per capita GDP of USD10,000.
“For Sabah to achieve this, for it to be at par with the rest of the country, we see that the way forward for the state is bioeconomy. We have the resources, what we need to do is overcome several challenges in order to bring in investors,” he told reporters after officiating at his ministry’s Bio-economy Day here yesterday.
Tangau said there were several highly promising segments under bio-economy that could be developed in Sabah but biochemical might have the biggest potential to become a niche sector that the state could focus on, given the huge biomass resource readily available.
He noted that there were over 2.4 million hectares of oil palm cultivated land in Sabah, providing a virtually unlimited supply of various raw materials that can be tapped for biochemical activities.
“This is a huge biomass resource. So many things we can tap from this, from affluent wastes, to methane, all kinds of things. In fact the people in the industry told me that the biggest potential for Sabah is in biochemical,” he said.
Tangau said he was happy to see that a lot of work had been done by state and federal agencies in developing bio-economy in Sabah, but a lot were still needed to be done, especially in getting investors to come in.
He said his ministry would do its part in ensuring that whatever obstacles hindering the development of the industry were overcome.
At the same time, he said the ministry also wanted to see more local businesses listed as BioNexus companies, noting only seven out of 261 registered companies from Sabah that were involved in bio-economy had been awarded the status so far.
“Compared to the huge resources we have in Sabah, seven companies is a minute figure. We want to have more local companies with BioNexus status. We have identified 10 bio-companies that can go global and have sent them for coaching. They have also been included for financial facilitation.
“Next, we are going to look at companies that are not bio-companies but already doing some businesses in bio-economy. Perhaps they need facilitation, assistance especially in the area of standards, certification and that kind of thing,” he said.
BioNexus is a special status awarded to local and international companies undertaking valueadded biotechnology or life sciences activities.
The status endows fiscal incentives, funding assistance and other guarantees to assist the growth of the companies and also comes with a list of privileges as stipulated in the BioNexus Bill of Guarantees, which include access to supportive information network linking research centres of excellence and access to shared laboratories and other related facilities.
Tangau said his ministry also wanted to facilitate interdepartmental partnership and linkages as well as collaborations and joint ventures between government and private companies in developing the bio-economy sector in Sabah.
Moving forward, he said the ministry was looking at efforts to get more students taking up science stream courses and joining bio-economy when they graduate.
He said the ministry is promoting a programme called BioCarreer to create awareness among the younger generations that there is a future for science students in bio-economy.
“In the future, as we continue to develop bio-economy, there will be less labour intensive jobs, but we are going to have a lot more of high quality jobs for our graduates and those in biotechnology. For this, we need more students taking up science.
“The country has set a target of 60 per cent science students but at the moment we are only at around 30 per cent. In fact, it is not very encouraging.
“So, the ministry wants to promote the idea that in order for the country to develop, it is very crucial that we embrace science, technology and innovation.
“I had the opportunity to meet UiTM lecturers and I am very happy to learn that a lot of Sabahans now are teaching there, but they told me that it was quite a challenge to get students with a science background,” he said.
Earlier in his speech at the event, Tangau said 48 Trigger Projects had been listed under the country’s Bio-economy Transformation Programme (BTP) as of October and expected to contribute RM5.97 billion to Malaysia’s gross national income (GNI) by 2020.
These projects were also expected to provide 25,355 job opportunities and secured cumulative investments of RM18.21 billion.
In Sabah, he said several high impact BTP projects were being implemented, with a total GNI contribution of RM858.4 million, RM2.73 billion in investments and 4,636 jobs by 2020.