Sabah, Sarawak biomass blueprint next week
KOTA KINABALU: The biomass blueprint for Sabah and Sarawak is expected to be launched in Kuala Lumpur next week by the Prime Minister together with Agensi Innovasi Malaysia (AIM) that promotes technology, said Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Raymond Tan Shu Kiah.
“One of the biggest developments in Sabah by AIM over the last six years is actually to help the promotion of technology to apply to the conversion of our plantation waste -- the biomass -- into products.
“After the program and the attention that was given in promotion of what the Prime Minister launched in 2010 on the bio technology economy, next Thursday, AIM together with the Prime Minister will be launching the Sabah and Sarawak Biomass Development Blueprint,” Tan said in a statement yesterday.
He said the Sabah and Sarawak Blueprint on development of biomass would encourage additional investment into these two states. The reason is because Sabah has 30 million tonnes of biomass accumulative and this is the biggest program in the state that is undertaken by POIC Lahad Datu.
“This program is something we have planned for more than six years.
“We in Sabah together with Sarawak will be very much involved into making sure that we attract investment that will come to the two states,” said Tan, who is also Industrial Development Minister.
“The economy that they are looking at the moment is basically telling us that we need to bring in technology in order to develop our manufacturing sector. For a while now we are just selling our commodities like the CPO, timber, rubber and oil and gas.
“But when the commodity market is not good, then we find out that our return in our state as well as national revenue is affected. So the only way to turn this around is to build on other than the services sector which is also the tourism sector that is a big income earner,” he explained.
“At the same time we need to build the manufacturing sector and we do it by the application of technology. Now this is all connected to show how we will be able to make sure that our economy is sustainable and is not relying on the price of oil and gas as well as the price of CPO because they are not sustainable.
“It is good income when the price goes up but if the price goes down, our income will be reduced. The only way to make sure it is sustainable, we must build on the services sector and the manufacturing sector,” he elaborated.
“Because we have oil and gas we venture into downstream. Next week Chief Minister Datuk Seri Musa Aman will be visiting SAMUR in Sipitang. The plant is ready and we are looking at production that will come from SAMUR.
“It took us four years to develop SAMUR and hopefully we will make more money by selling the fertilizer produced in SAMUR and this will be the biggest supply of urea in South East Asia by Petronas of course with state interest,” he said.
“With all this plus the fact that now in this New Year, there are two important things which have been announced, one, the development of Sapangar Bay Container Port. We talked about it last year. When we said we want to build the Sapangar port, there are dissenting voices claiming that this is all talk.
“So now Suria Capital starting from next year will be doing the port expansion so we do don’t just talk and announce. It is going to happen because the development of Sapangar Port is very important for us. Our products must be exported in order for us to make a profit,” said Tan.
“Number two that I want to mention is no more talk about the Cabotage Policy. I visited the Federation of Sabah Industries (FSI) and I am very happy when they told me that they will not say anything more about Cabotage except their stand is how to liberalize export activities in Sabah.
“I am very happy to hear that, there are people who say it is good and there are those who say otherwise. There are also people calling for the abolishment of the Cabotage Policy and I told them many times that we need to go to Parliament to do so. This is not a state policy, it is an Act of Law.
“But the law (also) says that Sabah’s exports can be liberalized so I asked the Minister, this is your responsibility to make sure that exports from Sabah can increase. Do not just develop the infrastructure and products but not make it easy to export.
“I need the port and I said it last year. The Minister said Okay we are going to help Sabah and we are going to make Sapangar Port active, and bigger. I am very happy to hear that. I want any kind of idea or suggestion, make it positive. I don’t mind to hear any new suggestion even from the opposition. This is the time to work together,” Tan said.
“I want to remind you that if business continues as usual, we may be facing difficulties by 2020 because the target for Vision 2020 to be an advance economy high income nation will be more difficult to achieve. So we must be active to develop all these products.
“I read this morning that the first biggest investment from San Francisco to Malaysia because PM is there. The whole Asean is in San Francisco to promote business. An RM2 billion investment in Penang by a semi-conductor company in San Francisco.
“We want investments from the USA, we cannot say that we do not want the TPPA and you vote against it. But now we have RM2 billion investment going to Penang and the government there should say Thank You,” Tan pointed out.
“So please we do not want to hear argument, object TPPA because you do not like America. Don’t use politics to say that you don’t like America but you like US Dollar. This one I don’t understand…. If Penang does not want investment from the USA, Sabah wants it. We are working hard for this.
“We are seeing results now. Let us focus on how we would attract these investments. It is for us never mind if the oil price goes down if we have increased investments into Malaysia,” he said.