Bumi minorities in New Economic Model

Orang Ulu Maidens

Admittedly, Bumiputra minorities comprising the Ibans, Bidayuhs, Orang Ulus and others in Sarawak and those in Sabah, have a long way to go to catch up with the progress and advancement of Bumiputra counterparts in Semenanjung Malaysia in terms of involvement in the commercial and industrial development of the country.

The way forward for them is to work harder in finding ways to participate meaningfully in the implementation of the 10^th Malaysia Plan onward. They cannot afford to work their normal way in the implementation of the plan as it also marks the launching of the new economic model towards the year 2020 and beyond.

Chief Minister Pehin Seri Haji Abdul Taib Mahmud, in his speech during a recent seminar on the New Economic Model with the theme “The Way Forward For Bumiputeras Minorities in Sabah and Sarawak” says the thrust of the 10^th Malaysia Plan is to give more opportunities for them to equalize their positions viz a viz with the more progressive communities in the country. 

The key word of the New Economic Model is the migration from the middle income to high income economy. Generally, both Sarawak and Sabah have got quite a lot to do in order to catch up with some states in Semenanjung Malaysia.  For this reason, the Prime Minister has given an additional allocation of RM 4 billion under a special package for Sarawak to build roads and provide electricity and water supplies to more villages and longhouses in rural areas.  

The program, to enable the rural people to catch up much more with their urban counterparts in terms of public utilities and amenities, will be carried out between now until the year 2012.  The allocation must be utilized fully to improve the situation in the rural areas, which are still having  problems relating to transportation, very scattered community in small numbers and a little bit of below par numbers of people having the right skills and talents to mobilize the rural economy.

Going through the 10^th Malaysia Plan, one will realize the 10MP unlike the previous development plans, is a big challenge to the people and country. The Prime Minister, in a very imaginative way, wants to ensure that the performance of the development program will be on target.  Efforts must be made to ensure that problems can be identified, analyzed and where ever possible to be solved by taking into consideration the local situation. In other words, the style of administration must accommodate local problems so that it can value the problems in a more imaginative way.

Iban Maidens

The New Economic Model has been designed to tackle problems of poverty, the inequality in incomes among the people, migration of the economy from middle income to high income economy and sustaining the debt level so that the country can achieve the goal of becoming a developed nation by the year 2020. More importantly, it must be able to sustain the level of income of between US15,000 – US20,000 as the per capita income. These are very high targets.

Admittedly, there are lots of problems especially in the procedural methods with the biggest one being how to train sufficient manpower with the right kinds of skills and qualifications that can attract industries to come. The workers will be expected to put in greater productivity in whatever they do to justify getting higher salaries. It is a very ambitious plan.

Understandably, the state has designed a development plan, quite similar with the concept of the New Economic Model that will take 20 years to implement all the way to the year 2030. The plan is based on the concept of trying to integrate the most backward parts of Sarawak namely places like Baram, Kapit, Kanowit and others, which have been very difficult to develop, for a more integrated development. It means the integration of the economy in order to give the economy of scale to undertake a kind of project that can give economic industries.

Emphasis on development of tourism

Of course, Sarawak has a lot to be happy about with emphasis being given to the development of tourism industry in the 10^th Malaysia Plan.  For example, the Federal government proposes to give subsidy to projects that can help to upgrade rural air services.  This should help to build the tourist industry in the vast rural areas of the State under the next plan period. The Bumiputra communities regardless of whether they are Malays, Dayaks, Kadazan, Dusun and others, who are known for their friendliness and warm hospitality should find themselves relevant in  the development of tourism industry provided they are prepared to work together to achieve the common goals.  

Kadazan Sumazau

The tourism industry like any other industries poses a big challenge to the players, who must from now onward, share a common goal of developing the industry.  For example, the tour operators must learn to do things together to become big players, more specifically as a tourism wholesaler in the state or country in order to have the recognition and credibility in the global market.

Malaysia records 20 million tourist arrivals every year but Sarawak get only between 3 to 4 million of them. Even Sabah is understood to be doing slightly better than Sarawak in tourism. In other words, the industry has barely touched the state in spite of the rich cultural and natural heritage, pristine beaches and other unique features that should be of interests to visitors. However, the industry cannot be developed in the normal way like the rest of the country like building good shopping complexes, offering jet-set tourism packages and doing other things relating to the industry as in Semenanjung Malaysia for a long time to come.

Sarawak is very rich with products for eco-tourism that can become more popular in future. Basically, eco-tourism is the development of products in the midst of rich natural and cultural heritage. Unfortunately, the past tourism policy, with emphasis on building the airline industry, has yet to explore and exploit eco-tourism potentials fully for common benefits. The activities have been restricted to bringing tourists to the main destinations like Kuala Lumpur, Kuching, Kota Kinabalu and few other towns and can hardly encourage the build up of services in the rural areas. For example, Mulu is not getting enough tourists yet because, until very recently, it did not have the right kind of aircraft to serve it as a tourist destination in spite of fame and beauty as a world heritage.

Bidayuh Maidens

Generally, the people go for eco-tourism with interests to see the way of life of the people and their rich cultural backgrounds. For example, the Equatorial Rainforests Music Festival is now world renown. Conscientious efforts are being made to find ways of expanding it to other places.  Miri has already started to hold the Jazz festival as the side activity of the festival. For the first time, the State has been able to establish market in the local cultural sites. More and more of the local dancers can be expected to become trainers rather than to continue as dancers in future.

Halal industry

The Halal market is still a green industry to be exploited in the global market. For this reason more and more countries including non Muslim countries are producing Halal products for the world market. Malaysia, being well regarded as a good Muslim country all over the world, has no reason not to take active part in the development of the industry. The State has already taken concrete steps to make Tanjung Manis as the centre for the Halal hub industry.  Tanjung Manis area is riddled with rivers and has got a very good port to support its development as the Halal hub. Besides, another port will be built at Paloh, which is deeper than Kuala Rajang, in order to provide   better access to the world market.

The Halal hub industry, now at its initial stage in Sarawak, can be considered to have started the right way. A laboratory has been set up to carry out research before works can be carried out to open up lands to plant fruit trees and vegetable and dig ponds to rear fish on commercial basis. Later it will spread out to bio-tech industries as part of the process. The industry, which is a joint partnership between the State Government and Taiwanese industrialists, will produce food that will not contain lots of chemical hazard.  For example, it will produce chickens that do not contain lots of anti-biotic. In other words, the industry has a premium formula to produce meat free of anti-biotic.

Iban Ngajat

The State government believes that the Halal hub in Tanjung Manis will be able to export at least RM4 billion worth of products in a year within the next seven years.  The products will include those from Bintulu, Igan Tunoh in Kapit division and other rural areas.  It will be a reflection of the development of palm oil plantations all over the places. The integration of all potentials of production offers a great deal of business and employment opportunities for the local people.

But the fight in future will be on getting qualified people at the top between countries including the developed ones. Therefore, conscientious efforts must be made to arm the people with knowledge. In this respect, Bumiputras must be encouraged to undertake technical education, rather than the normal path of education. The manpower study will be undertaken some time this year primarily to see the availability of skilled, technical and the professional manpower in the State.

Sarawak considers the Federal concept of Regional Economic Corridor of Development not only timely and but relevant for the development of the mid region of Sarawak, which consists of sparsely populated areas, as a corridor in order to harness all the potentials and bring about powerful magnets from it.

Penan Man From Batu Bungan (Fazli Taufek's Photo)

Indisputably, the greatest magnet is the development of the water resources as hydro power. Hence, the development plan must concentrate on how to give more reasonably cheaper power to industries that will be set up in the region. The state’s ambition is to attract world class industries to come with the availability of comparatively cheaper energy that will enable them to compete in the world trade. Besides, Sarawak has about half a billion ton of coals that can be harnessed as sources of energy on top of hydro.  The coal reserves provide the flexibility of planning to even out curves in the build up of the supply of energy.

The State is planning to have 3,000MW of electricity by 2016.  The target is to have 28,000MW as the maximum and 20,000 MW as the minimum for a period from 2010 all the way to 2030. Another coal fired station and the hydro dam at Pelagus will be developed concurrently to enhance the State’s ability to give energy at the earlier stage. The State’s plan is to generate as much energy as possible in the early stage in order to facilitate the development of more heavy industries to come in order to give real impact to the local people. The heavy industries, though they will be set up by foreign investors, will create numerous downstream industries for the small and medium scale industries to come up.

benuasains

*Photos Source: google.com images