APPRECIATION: Taib receives a memento from Unimas vice-chancellor Prof Datuk Dr Khairuddin Abdul Hamid (left) after the former officiated at the opening of the Encon 2012 yesterday. — Photo by Tan Song Wei
KUCHING: More satellite towns will be established in the future to complement the large cities to avoid falling victim to problems of rapid urbanisation.
In calling for greater development and use of green technologies, Chief Minister Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud said the state had a development model of its own and did not aspire to have big cities to avoid the rapid rise in cost of living.
“The plan is for the state to have a lot of smaller towns near a big city such as Kuching.
“To have a society that is wide spreading to moderate-size towns as seen in New Zealand and Scandinavian countries would be the best model here and we are trying to develop along this line.
“With this, we will be able to enjoy prosperity while maintaining the ever important quality of life,” explained Taib when officiating at the Fifth Engineering Conference (Encon 2012) at Pullman Hotel here.
The conference, organised by Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) and Institution of Engineers Malaysia (IEM) Sarawak branch, was themed ‘Engineering Towards Change — Empowering Green Solutions’.
Highlighting that the country had been struggling to improve its environmental record in tandem with efforts to achieve greater success in economic development, he said the state had thus far succeeded in achieving quite a reasonable development while sustaining its environment.
“The state is slowly catching up in development.
“We used to be third from the bottom when compared to other states in terms of development but today we are in the top four.
“Our vision is for the state to achieve number one come 2030,” he continued.
He also said the state was going intensively into industrialisation by focussing on smelting technology in the Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE), highlighting that research in the field would provide more practical usage to the state and that an agreement had already been signed with Swinburne University of Melbourne on how to improve smelting technology by using lower heat.
“Conserving energy is a very important matter.
“It is understood that if we can reduce some of this energy by one degree from the present 800 degrees to melt down aluminium we can save a lot of money,” explained Taib.