KOTA KINABALU: President of the Federation of Chinese Associations cum Kota Kinabalu Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Datuk Seri Panglima Sari Nuar, has described 2011 as a tough year for the global economy.
The United States and the Euro zone nations are struggling to overcome their budget deficits and try to cut public spending, especially for nations like Greece, Ireland, Spain and Portugal to avoid bankruptcy.
The austerity drive in the erstwhile wealthy nations has caused them to reduce importation of foreign manufactured goods in order to create jobs by reviving their own manufacturing industry, hence imposing a series of trade protectionism, with high tariffs against Asian manufactured goods, particularly China.
“With the advent of information technology, we are becoming more involved, and becoming more conscious of the happenings around the world.
“We had seen the tumultuous year all over world. The outbursts of mother nature in the form of earthquakes in New Zealand, and Japan was further devastated by a tsunami resulting in massive destruction of buildings, agricultural corps and loss of valuable human lives,” he said in a statement.
He said the continuing political unrests in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and the people’s uprisings in the Middle East had resulted in the overthrow of governments in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. The trend was now spreading to Yemen, Syria, and to some extent, Iran. The turmoil of the fossil fuel producing Middle Eastern countries had driven oil to more than USD100 per barrel.
“Indeed, we must place peace and prosperity and racial harmony as our top priority, especially for Sabah. The world’s economy is in a tail spin, but Sabah is endowed with natural assets in combating recession.
“We are free from earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunami, typhoon and free from religious extremists such as experienced in the Middle East. Our people have for the past one hundred years co-existed peacefully and harmoniously, typified by the multi-cultural and multi-racial society,” said Sari.
“Likewise, the natural resources in good weather, fertile soils, and large tracts of arable land have made Sabah recession proof as our golden crop, palm oil, is a shining star.
“In spite of the anti-palm oil campaigns by the soya bean oil and sunflower seed oil producers in America and Europe, the demand for palm oil goes unabated, especially in China and India which had already established themselves as the world economic powers.
“The demand for bio-fuel, also from palm oil, would only enhance the value. Hence, being the largest palm oil producing region in Malaysia, Sabah can be steered clear from the negative impact of the global economic downturn. Besides, new offshore oil fields and the shifting of downstream processing of the petro-chemical industry by Petronas to the west coast of Sabah also augurs well for Sabah.”
The recent launching of the Economic Transformation Programme, Government Transformation Programme, as well as the Sabah Development Corridor are meant well for the systematic development of Sabah, making Sabah together with other states as part of a high income nation by 2020.
“We must acknowledge the leadership ability of our Chief Minister Datuk Seri Panglima Musa Aman who has turned around the state coffer from deficit when he assumed office to the handsome surplus today.
“The state budget for 2012 is also well received. It is of utmost importance to have a stable state government, especially under the Chief Minister who is also good in financial management as the Finance Minister. We wish our Sabah people will continue to enjoy peace, prosperity and multi-racial harmony,” he concluded.