LOOKS GOOD: Taib checks out a cake at Giant. Looking on from left are Ragad, Herriot and Goh.
CM: Sibu has potential for growth as education, trading hub
SIBU: The vast hinterland surrounding Sibu must be developed to become the focal point for trading and retail activities in the central region.
Chief Minister Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud said the town could also be turned into a prosperous education and service centre.
Opening Giant Hypermall at Ling Kai Cheng Road here yesterday, Taib said Sibu could do well if it had good relationships with towns such as Kanowit, Kapit, Mukah, Belawai, Sarikei and Tanjong Manis.
“To illustrate this point, just before the Hari Raya celebration, I was told that the town’s retail trade had grown by 30 per cent,” he said.
Among those present were Taib’s wife Puan Sri Ragad Kurdi Taib, State Secretary Datuk Amar Mohd Morshidi Abdul Ghani, Second Finance Minister Dato Sri Wong Soon Koh, Sibu Municipal Council chairman Datuk Tiong Thai King, Nangka assemblyman Dr Annuar Rapa’ee, Episo Enterprise managing director David Goh and GCH retail chief operating officer Tom Herriot. For this vision he had of Sibu to materialise, Taib said it was crucial that the political climate should not ‘change for the worse’.
He recalled that in the 1950s and 1960s, Sibu was a booming town because of the rise of the timber industry. But as years went by the decline in the natural supply of timber led many of its people to migrate to other towns in search of greener pastures.
“I was once asked by the leaders here to stop the migration from Sibu, and how to recapture its prosperity in terms of retail trade.
“I told them I could not do that because its prosperity could no longer depend on the initiative of its people alone,” he said.
On education facilities here, Taib said the people here must strive to develop it because Sibu was the gateway for the implementation of the Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE).
“It is because of this that the government is keen to change the Laila Taib University College (KLT) not only to give formal university education but to have more comprehensive technical education at diploma or certificate levels.