Datuk Mutang Tagal
MIRI (Oct 5): The federal government should allocate a few billions of ringgit under the 12th Malaysia Plan (12MP) for Sarawak and Sabah to accelerate parity with West Malaysia, said Orang Ulu Chamber Of Commerce and Industry (OUCCI).
Its president Datuk Mutang Tagal said massive development allocation akin to the ‘Marshall Plan’ the US had for Europe after the region’s devastation by World War II is needed to leapfrog the two East Malaysian regions.
He pointed out that economic and social development disparity between the two East Malaysian regions and Malaya after 58 years of being part of Malaysia and after the implementation of 11 consecutive Malaysia Plans was glaring, and this needed a reset.
“Something is wrong or something had gone wrong with the federal government policies and it is ironic that despite the two regions being blessed with abundant natural resources such as timber, oil and gas, vast land and minerals, they continue to remain at the bottom of the pack,” he said.
He anticipated that Sarawak and Sabah will not be on par with Malaya when Malaysia achieves a high income nation status by 2030, if the Federal Government is only paying ‘lip service’ to the two East Malaysian regions by giving slightly higher development allocation in small incremental amounts in the 12MP.
Mutang was commenting on the allocations to both Sarawak and Sabah for infrastructure development, communications, technology, education, health and others which included upgrading of 1,400 rural roads and completion of the 1,150km Pan Borneo Highway project.
He emphasised that much more needed to be done in the two regions in terms of economic development to make the two regions attractive for foreign direct investments (FDIs) which will generate economic spin-off benefits in the form of jobs, services, technology transfer and increased production capacity, from which OUCCI expected to benefit.
He said the chamber looked forward to financial aids, incentives, tax breaks, training and up-skilling for SMEs during the 12MP period in order for them to be able to contribute more than 45 per cent to the GDP by 2025.
It also wanted greater government engagement with traders and young people to seize business opportunities in the gig economy via digital platforms such as e-hailing and p-hailing as the way forward as Malaysia enters Industrial Revolution 4.0 (4IR), he added.
He also said as the gig economy offers unlimited opportunities for young and talented entrepreneurs, OUCCI believes that the government should empower them to thrive in the global digital economy.
from Borneo Post Online https://bit.ly/3AbyWDd
via IFTTT
No comments:
Post a Comment