KUCHING: Sarawak-based Hock Seng Lee Bhd (HSL), which recorded a pre-tax profit of RM116.6 million for the financial year ended December 31 last year, up 18 per cent from the previous year, expects to achieve further growth in 2012.
Managing director Datuk Paul Yu Chee Hoe said HSL’s optimistic outlook is based on a three-pronged approach to drive Sarawak’s development, including the need to alleviate the consequences of rapid urbanisation on the state’s major cities – squatters, wastewater disposal, flooding and traffic snarls.
“Many urban developments will require a land reclamation component and, therefore, whether it is a hospital to be built, a new road, better drainage or an industrial park, our marine engineering skills will be in demand,” he said in HSL Annual Report 2011, which was made available to Bernama here.
With 33 ongoing projects spread across the state, he said, there is also a need to provide remote communities with basic amenities, clean water and mains electricity, as well as access to markets so that they are not left behind in the development drive.
He said no coverage of HSL’s future would be complete without mention of the 70,000 sq km Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (Score) and the urgent need to provide promised infrastructure to investors, such as road linkages, treated water and port facilities.
“At present, a quarter of our existing contracts are Score-related and this ratio many increase depending on the timing of the roll-out of projects from the Regional Corridor Development Authority (Recoda), Score’s administrative body,” he said.
Planned in three phases over 22 years (2008 to 2030), Score’s total infrastructure bill could be RM64 billion, he noted.
Yu said the coastal Score growth node towns of Mukah, Tanjung Manis and Samalaju are now the scene of substantial construction activity, with pioneering high-energy consuming industries in various stages of building their facilities at Samalaju Industrial Park.
These include the manganese smelting plants of Asia Minerals Ltd, which signed its Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) in January this year, and OM Materials (Sarawak) Sdn Bhd, which signed its PTA the following month.
As more energy tariff agreements are signed, more projects would proceed and more infrastructure and building works would be generated, he said. — Bernama