Tangau promotes Sabah as investment hub in Nanning
KOTA KINABALU: Sabah has what it takes to become an investment hub in the region, said Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Seri Panglima Wilfred Madius Tangau
“We have all the requisite ingredients for your investment to succeed – a strategic geographic location, access to raw materials, supporting infrastructure and facilities and a proactive government.
“Let me assure you that the Sabah Government is always open to new business ideas and proposals. We stand ready to facilitate your investment interest and would do our level best to ensure that all business interactions will be to our mutual benefits,” he stressed.
“It may be correct for me to sum up that the investment opportunities are limited only by your creativity,” Tangau said in his address during the Seminar on Investment Opportunities in Malaysia in the on-going 16th ChinaASEAN Expo (CAEXPO) 2019 in Nanning, Guangxi, China yesterday.
He said Malaysia can be the logistics hub for the AsiaPacific region mainly due to the Malacca Straits and the Lombok-Makassar Straits.
“While the Malacca Straits is already well known, the growing number of shipping traffic passing through the LombokMakassar Straits suggests that the east coast of my home state of Sabah is a prime location to develop a logistics hub. I believe the planned transfer and development of the new Indonesian capital to East Kalimantan is a new strategic factor that underlines the growing importance of the Lombok-Makassar shipping route,” he added.
The strategic location of Malaysia as a gateway to the ASEAN region with a population base of 650 million people and Malaysia’s geographic location midway between Australia and China means that the country is centrally located within the ASEAN region.
Tangau said, “Our strategic geographic location means that multi-national companies setting up a base in Sabah, for example, would have the advantage of being able to easily tap into the abundant resources and raw materials available in the east ASEAN sub-region in particular.
“This area covering Southern Philippines, Sulawesi, Kalimantan and Papua New Guinea is the last major frontier of relatively untapped natural resources on land and in the seas.”
ASEAN has a number of subregional economic groupings, including the Brunei-IndonesiaMalaysia-Philppines East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMPEAGA).
“With a population of over 60 million people and a land area of 1.6 million square miles, BIMPEAGA holds vast resources and raw materials. As it stands, the BIMP-EAGA region is already an important source of raw materials for China. These include coal, crude petroleum, minerals and marine resources among others,” said Tangau who is also Sabah Minister of Trade and Industry.
“Located at the heart of the BIMP-EAGA region, Sabah can be your strategic hub to aggregate and process these resources as well as a distribution hub for imports from China, break bulk and then transported to markets in the region. Our strategic geographic location also allows for easier access to markets in Southeast Asia,” he said.
Tangau also urged the close to 200 attendees from several countries to invest in the fast growing halal industry in Malaysia, where the Malaysian halal standards and certification are globally recognised.
“The key drivers of the halal industry include the growing global Muslim population, the growing economies of the Muslim countries and the emergence of new halal markets including the Middle East, Europe, India and of course China itself,” he said.
The halal industry offers diverse opportunities encompassing a wide range of products and services that include food, logistics, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, food ingredients and additives.
Tangau, who is also the United Pasokmomogun Kadazandusun Murut Organisation (UPKO) president, said Sabah is a strategic location for halal processing, halal cargo consolidation and redistribution activities known for its abundant resources such as palm oil, aquaculture, fisheries, seaweed as well as other by-products from palm oil and bio-refineries both within the State and from the broader BIMP-EAGA region.
“Sabah is free from Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease (HMD) and has a strong governmental support facilitated by the global recognition of Malaysia’s halal certification,” he said.
Tangau also spoke about the fisheries and aquaculture sector, pointing out that the Malaysian government is supportive of large-scale development of highvalue aquaculture, industrial seaweed cultivation, seed and fry production, deep sea fishing as well as more valueadded, downstream processing of fisheries products such as canning and cold storage.
On the palm oil based industries, he said Malaysia currently is the second largest palm oil producer in the world producing about 18 million tonnes per year.
“While crude palm oil is already well known, less well known perhaps are the related downstream business opportunities that the oil palm industry offers, including in the palm-based biomass sector.
“These palm-based resources offer a range of value-adding downstream opportunities for the food-based sector such as shortening, confectionary, ice-cream and bakery fats. In the phytonutrients sector, the products include carotenes, coenzymes, squalene and lecithin.
“Palm-based oleochemicals can be utilized to produce an equally wide range of products from personal care to industrial use protective coatings materials. I am sure that there are numerous other products that entrepreneurs can think of and produce using palm-based resources,” he said.
Tangau also said the full utilization of palm-based biomass such as empty fruit bunch (EFB), oil palm fronds and trunks, mesocarp fibers, palm kernels shell and palm oil mill effluents (POME) is yet to be fully realised.
“Downstream opportunities include the production of biopellets, biofuels, bioethanol and bio-based chemicals. Other areas are furniture from oil palm lumber, wood plastic composite, particle board, pulp and paper, fertilizer and animal feed.
“These are some examples of the finished products that can be produced from palmbased biomass. In Sabah alone, where palm based downstream industries are limited; we have estimated the downstream potential to be worth more than RM200 billion,” he added.
On the furniture industry, Tangau said Sabah has designated an industrial area in Sandakan specifically for furniture industry players to locate and pursue their business activities.
“You may be interested to know that in Sabah, we have now banned the export of round logs in order to support the growth of the furniture industry. And we are ready to put in place the necessary measures to ensure that the forestry industry remains as a strong economic sector for Sabah,” he added.
On the oil and gas sector, he said Malaysia continues to offer potential investors many fine locations including in Sabah to pursue their business interests.
On the infrastructure and land development, he said the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), for example, is clearly a suitable avenue to pursue some of these opportunities.
Perhaps this gathering, he said, is only logical when we look back at the centuries of interactions that China and Malaysia have had.
“Indeed, in my home State of Sabah there are many stories and legends of Chinese merchants visiting and doing business with our local peoples in the distant past…it is perhaps only right to re-energize our mutual engagement to the next level,” he added.
The seminar was organized by the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA) led by its Guangzhou director, Nazuki Abdullah. There were also presentations from POIC Lahad Datu, Sipitang Oil and Gas Development Corporation (SOGDC).
Sabah is also represented by 17 entrepreneurs taking part in the expo which will end today.