luncheon
KOTA KINABALU: Sabah is willing to continue tapping into its readily available renewable energy resources to lead the country’s green energy sector.
Industrial Development Minister Datuk Raymond Tan said green energy has a huge potential in Sabah and the government has already taken aggressive steps to encourage its development.
“Half of the renewable energy in Malaysia is currently produced in Sabah. Moving forward, we want to produce not only for the State’s domestic consumption but also for the nation,” he said to reporters after officiating at the closing of a Luncheon Talk organized by Skills Development Department here, yesterday.
He noted that about 40 per cent from over RM50 billion investment captured under the Sabah Development Corridor Development (SDC) so far were in energy and manufacturing.
At the function earlier, Tan stressed on the importance of providing sufficient and quality human capital in order to develop Sabah’s major industries, including the emerging oil and gas sector.
Towards this, he said government leaders and officers must go to the ground and tell the people of the potential in these various industries.
“We need to make them see and understand, both parents and children, that there is a huge prospect in different professions that are key to propelling these industries forward.
“Back in my time, when you ask a kid what he or she wanted to be, the typical answer you will get is lawyer, doctor, and so on. I think today’s kids are still those same kids, and maybe still the same parents too.
“I mean how many time do you get to hear a kid tell you that he wants to be an electrician when he grows up, or how many time do you hear a parent tell their children to become a food engineer or an expert in automative for instance. We need to change this,” he said.
Meanwhile, Deputy Human Resource Minister Datuk Maznah Mazlan in her welcoming remarks said the government would continue to improve technical education and vocational training (TEVT) facilities towards increasing the number of skilled technical workers in Malaysia.
She noted that the country aims to have at least 37 per cent of its workforce to be from TEVT stream by 2015. Currently they represent only 23 per cent of the workers.
Her speech was delivered by Deputy Director General of Skills Development Department, Nidzam Kamarulzaman.