Uggah (centre) and Nancy (third right) with (from left) Abu Bakar, Ismaw, Dr Seung, Aishah and Mark after the MoU-signing ceremony.
KUCHING: Creating sustainable green industries is the right direction for the country to take as it will benefit Sarawakians.
This was the opinion of the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Nancy Shukri as green industries will create more high value jobs for Sarawakians, while supporting rural development initiatives driven by the private sector.
These initiatives are aligned with the green efforts of the state government in changing the industrialisation landscape.
She said among the efforts of the federal government to create more green industries in the State was the implementation of Sarawak Biomass Industry Development Plan (SBIDP) earlier this year.
SBIDP leverages on the existing strengths of Sarawak to create a strong foundation for the mobilisation of biomass resources together with that of her world class port facilities, robust road infrastructure, extensive river networks and on-ground machinery for timber operations to achieve scale and cost effectiveness.
“SBIDP, launched in February by the prime minister, has shown that Sarawak can be a major catalyst in the country’s efforts to become a regional biomass processing hub. Sarawak, the largest state in Malaysia, holds great potential as a multi-feedstock location for biomass-based investments due to its vast lands and wide range of industries,” she added.
With increased interest and being close to commercial technologies in the biomass industry, this is an opportunity for Sarawak to position herself as Asia’s first integrated biomass cluster.
This was due to the fact that Sarawak has enormous land mass and potential to develop the plantation sector into high value industries such as biofuels and biochemicals.
Sarawak has integrated biomass as part of the newly promoted industries under the Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE), guided by SBIDP’s roadmap and action plan and executed by a federal-state steering committee in collaboration with a taskforce comprising Sarawak Planning Unit (SPU) and Agensi Inovasi Malaysia (AIM).
“Based on the plan, Sarawak can potentially host 10 biofuels or biochemical plants and mobilise approximately 30 per cent of her biomass resources across the four clusters: Bintulu, Miri, Tanjung Manis and Kuching. Today we reiterate the federal government’s commitment to achieve progress in Sarawak, bridging the income gap by creating new industries and business opportunities for local companies and communities,” said Nancy.
The state government and federal government will continue to bring improvement to industrial infrastructure, transportation networks and logistics to meet the demands of new growing industries such as biomass and businesses.
Nancy was speaking at the signing of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) at a local hotel yesterday between Sarawak-based company Biomass Renewable Resources (BRR), AIM and South Korea’s GS Caltex to assess the feasibility of building biobutanol plants in Sarawak.
Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas, Deputy State Secretary Datu Ismawi Ismuni and SPU director Datu Abu Bakar Marzuki witnessed the MoU signing.
Signing on behalf of BRR was its project developer Dato Seri Paduka Aisah Mahmud while AIM was represented by its CEO Mark Rozario and GS Caltex by its CEO Dr Seung Do Young.