ACCELERATED DEVELOPMENT: Photo depicts the iconic State Legislative Assembly building standing majestically, overlooking the Sarawak River. Banking on SCORE, Sarawak is on track to continue reaping speedier economic growth and creating 2.5 million jobs by 2020, says Dr Khan.
KUCHING: The government has done well towards the development of the largest state, Sarawak, by improving infrastructure to expand its economy, creating more job opportunities as well as reducing the poverty rate.
One obvious development would be the provision of economic opportunities within the Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE), aimed towards the acceleration of economic growth and improvement of the quality of life in the state.
“SCORE has kicked-off well.
“Investments in Sarawak has grown more than triple in 2010 compared with 2009 and creating one million jobs,” Affin Investment Bank Bhd’s head of retail research, Dr Nazri Khan told Bernama.
Banking on SCORE, Sarawak should be on track to continue reaping speedier economic growth and creating 2.5 million jobs by 2020, he said.
He said this significant improvement will be further boosted by quality investments into the manufacturing, construction and services sectors at SCORE, which is a corridor set up by the federal and Sarawak state government for the state’s future.
Dr Nazri said the outcome of the government’s initiatives had also been clearly shown through the dramatic drop in the number of people living in poverty from 35 per cent in 1985 to five per cent last year.
He said although timber, oil and gas (O&G), plantation and tourism would be the key drivers for Sarawak, the challenge for the state government would be on tackling private investments and human capital development.
“Sarawak is diversified.However, the information is not so clear.
“The challenges are issues of transparency on economic information, broadband penetration and also equal distribution of wealth,” he said.
Therefore, Dr Nazri said the state government would need to manage the perception of the young people by providing higher education and also connectivity to ensure that they would not easily influenced by irresponsible parties.
Asked on the oil royalty, Dr Nazri said this should not be an issue because the people are enjoying comfort.
However, there should be a ‘development corporation’ set up to manage oil royalty and look after the resources in order to be more transparent.
Sarawak currently receives a five per cent oil royalty from the federal government.
However, some parties claim that Sarawak should demand for a higher oil royalty rather than funds from the federal government. — Bernama