Business picking up at new heritage centre
MIRI: Business has been sluggish but is slowly picking up at the new RM1.9million Miri Heritage Centre, which was officially declared open on Jan 27 this year.
Several tenants met by The Borneo Post yesterday are optimistic that when the global economy picks up, more locals and tourists will buy handicrafts at the centre which has cosy interior and ample parking spaces.
“Comparatively, we were doing quite well while we were in the old premises, taking into account that the rental was low, only RM400 per month but now it has been raised to RM700 per month,” said a tenant who only want to be called Sandra.
Without disclosing the monthly income and sales of handicrafts, Sandra however is grateful that their trading premises has been upgraded and provided with aircondition facility while in the past they have only ceiling fans.
Another tenant, Catherine Lahung concurred with Sandra that business was slow despite having an impressive new building.
“It’s a beautiful building with cosy interior and more organised than before. We can only display our crafts within the line drawn in front of our stall. It is a good concept for comfort especially our customers and hopefully business will pick up soon,” she said.
Lahung hoped that the Miri City Council ( MCC) would expedite repairing of certain units of aircondition that malfunctioned for several weeks for the comfort of both tenants and customers.
On sales of products, she said on certain days especially during festive seasons and holidays, business has been brisk.
“However during some days there was no business at all for example on Monday when flash flood affected certain parts of Miri city and its outskirt areas and the heavy rain probably prevented customers from coming. However on some days we can earn several hundred ringgit,” said Lahung.
She said her customers even those from Kuching, Bintulu and Brunei came to buy many crafts especially traditional crafts including hand-woven pua kumbu and rattan baskets.
Meanwhile, a customer Violette Tan, the chairwoman of Bruneibased Helping Hands said the Miri Handicraft Centre is a convenient one- stop centre to buy local handicrafts.
“I deal in a lot of crafts made by the Penans in northern Sarawak whom we help through the Helping Hands. They can make beautiful crafts but they too have limitation in their designs and workmanship.
“Here I can see the workmanship of other crafters especially on the rattan baskets are superb and even have creative designs on baskets made of plastic materials. I am considering helping the craft sellers at the Miri Handicraft Centre to market their products in Brunei not under the Penan’s label but other natives like Kayan or Kenyah,” revealed Tan.
Helping Hands is a nongovernmental organisation (NGO) and among their initiatives planned for helping the Penans were promotion and marketing of basketry and woven products, installation of gravity-feed piped water and solar power supply at their villages, and sponsorships for students to further their studies up to tertiary level.
The Miri Heritage Centre houses 13 local handicraft stalls, a kiosk for local favourite ‘ Kueh Lapis’ ( layered cake) as well as a cafeteria.
“Miri Handicraft Centre promotes local arts and handicrafts and is a place of interest for tourists and visitors to Miri city,” said mayor Adam Yii, when launching the centre last January.
Yii had stressed that as 2018 is Tourism Year for Miri, the launch of Miri Handicraft Centre spearheaded the council’s journey to further promote Miri.