KOTA KINABALU: Sabah, according to International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Sri Mustapa Mohamed, has huge investment potential as it has undergone major transformation in the past three years.
Mustapa added that Sabah’s sectors with potential are in the tourism, palm oil and forest industries.
The state will also be beneficiary of the oil and gas boom that is happening in Malaysia, he told a press conference after a roundtable meeting with selected companies in Sabah.
The roundtable meeting which Sabah Industrial Development Minister Datuk Raymond Tan also attended, was aimed to seek views on potential expansion initiatives from the companies and improvements to the investment environment in Sabah.
According to Mustapa, investment is very important and under the 10th Malaysia Plan (10MP), the government wanted the country’s investment to increase by 12.8 per cent annually from 2011 to 2015.
“We must have a realized investment of RM115 billion per annum and this morning we discussed with Datuk Raymond how much is Sabah’s component.
“Datuk Raymond will be working closely with my officers to see what contribution Sabah can make to achieve the investment … perhaps it could be RM5 billion per annum, the numbers are being worked out.
“It can be more, it can be less,” he said adding, “it is a very ambitious target which is why we must work hard to ensure that the investment target is achieved.
Mustapa also said his ministry and the Malaysian Industrial Development Authority (MIDA) would be working closely with the companies to resolve issues that they were facing in their operations.
Among issues raised were logistics, narrow roads, a proposal to have the Kota Kinabalu-Sipitang road upgraded into four lanes, transportation costs and the border checks in Brunei Darussalam that have caused increase in the transportation costs of exports to Sarawak and Brunei Darussalam.
Other arising issues included terminal charges and the high charges imposed by sub-contractors at the Kota Kinabalu port, difficulties in getting some applications, foreign levy and gas prices.
“We gave our assurance to help them in some of the issues such as those concerning terminal charges and sub-contractors at the ports who impose high charges,” he said, adding that Raymond would meet with the relevant authorities to get an explanation on why the charges were high.
MIDA, he said, would be working closely with POIC to promote POIC in the Peninsular as they wanted to attract local as well as foreign investors.
“All this is in line with the new economic model, with our objective of being a developed country, in line with the principle and inclusiveness (as) we do not want to have any state to be left behind.
“Therefore it is important to further promote more development in Sabah, important to invest more in infrastructure, promote investment in manufacturing and tourism and other sectors of the economy,” he stressed.