Admittedly, the road ahead will not by any mean easy in spite of the fact that the Government both at the federal and State levels have formulated the right strategy for development towards attaining the objectives of vision 2020.
The task is being outlined in the development of New Economic Model (NEM) with the primary objective to transform the economy from the middle income to high income economy by the year 2020. The target is have at least US15,000 or in today’s money about RM45,000 per capita income, which is the international measurement for the status of a developed nation, by the year 2020. The State’s per capita income now is RM33,000.
Obviously, for Sarawak to meet the difference of RM12,000 in 10 years is not really an arduous task. The target can be achieved with a modest growth of less than 5% in the next 10 years. However, the challenge to attain the status of a developed nation may cause some short –term pains but will pay off with a stronger Malaysian future. It will, among other things, demand Malaysians to be open to changes that can be painful and shortcuts will be tempting.
The development of the new economics model will be a defining moment. It will be a daunting task but an essential one for the future of the State and nation. But it necessitates the State to pursue an ambitious plan in the process. The State and the country must choose the right path, move forward and build a fairer, stronger and dynamic Malaysia. The development will be guided by three principles – high income, sustainability and inclusiveness to drive the country’s economic progress to become a developed nation.
As inclusiveness is one of the key components of NEM, the first priority must be to eradicate poverty irrespective of race. The country cannot have high income, sustainable and inclusive economy when disparities in income are not addressed to. In this respect, the Bumiputra community, comprising of the Malays and other indigenous groups in Sarawak and Sabah, still form the majority of people, who risk being lagged behind if support and assistance are not being given to them. Hence, the implementation of NEM must help those in low income group based on needs instead of race; it will still largely benefit the Bumiputra community.
The development of New Economic Model will be carried out based on the following strategic initiatives as outlined by the Prime Minister, Dato Seri Mohd. Najib Tun Razak:
- Re-energising the private sector to lead growth;
- Developing a quality workforce and reducing dependency on foreign labour;
- Creating a competitive domestic economy;
- Strengthening the public sector;
- Putting in place transparent and market friendly affirmative action;
- Building knowledge based infrastructure;
- Enhancing the sources of growth; and
- Ensuring sustainability of growth towards 2020 and beyond.
Obviously, the new development will demand conscientious efforts to be made to marshal the people to share a common aim and learn to co-operate in the continuous development of the economy. The process must never stop even if the objectives have been met because the higher the economy goes up the more success that the people want to achieve; generally the people can never be satisfied with what they have already achieved.
The people, on their part, must involve more actively in the development of New Economic Model. They must keep up the spirit of the struggle that has enabled the Government to lead the people from the bottom to move upwards. Understandably, there must be sufficient machinery to monitor and identity groups that could be left out in the process of development. More importantly, ways must be found to overcome the problems that may crop up from time to time.
Chief Minister, Pehin Sri Haji Abdul Taib Mahmud, in his recent speech during a gathering of PBB members in Kuching, says he is committed to the struggle to upgrade the quality of life of the people, regardless of their ethnic origins and religious beliefs, through better quality of manpower. Therefore, conscientious efforts must continue to be made to build the confidence of the people in their own future. However, they must be prepared to adjust to the new demands of time. They must be mobile and be more receptive to new ideas and observant of the discipline.
He is happy that efforts to open up vast tracts of land for estates and set up more industries that can create jobs for young people have been able to accelerate the overall pace of economic development towards the year 2020 and beyond. The new industries can employ lots of people and pay them higher salaries. Undoubtedly, the opening up of the vast tracts of land for commercial purposes serves as the best way to absorb people, who are considered to be under- employed in rural areas, to become gainfully employed .
Pehin Sri Abdul Taib says that Sarawak has been able to double labour force during the last 20 years to 1 million with the bright prospects to increase the number by another 1.5 million with the development of SCORE. All of these depend on the State’s ability to upgrade the quality of manpower. In any case, the necessity to produce more workers with technical skills and expertise is coming up more and more in the development of human capital.
He says the ICT revolution, though not fully developed in Sarawak, has helped to make learning for better education easier for the people, the new generation in particular. The State government, during the last two or three years, has been developing YFi network to get every school in rural areas to have access to computer. Thus far, Sarawak has been able to make 50% penetration of ICT to rural areas.
That was the outline, which was different from Peninsular Malaysia with slightly better infrastructure, in the development of ICT in Sarawak. The State has to fight all kinds of battles including physical as well as social and economic infrastructure in the development of ICT.
Pehin Sri Abdul Taib says Sarawak, from the very beginning, cannot rely on domestic market as the population is small and scattered over 5,000 settlements with 60% of them each has about 30 to 40 families only. It is not the kind of environment suitable to develop the country. But somehow, the State government has been able to formulate a long-term plan to develop a three -tier population centres namely towns, secondary towns and rural growth centres. The development is based on a concept to have 5,000 people as the minimum size for the economic community for an area.
He says the people in Sarawak, unlike their counterparts in Peninsular Malaysia who can rely on domestic market, tend to focus on international market as the benchmark for progress in future. They are buoyed by the success to upgrade the timber industry to become more modern and sustainable. The timber industry has been making conscientious efforts to produce niche products for the international market.
Hence, the industry has been able market niche products like high quality plywood, processed timber, furniture and other things without depending on the strength of Indonesia as it used to do before. Indonesia used to dump timber products any time the market trends are unfavourable to the industry. Such practices used to have adverse effects on the local timber industry.
He says the practice is to allow seven big timber companies to stock up timber until the situation in the market improves. The companies are big enough to do so and be specialized in the export market. The State will do the same thing with palm oil and the by-products. For example, if palm oil has a flow price, which can be considered to be unfair to the commodity, the State will stock the commodity until it can command reasonable prices.
Pehin Sri Abdul Taib says eventually, the State will process more palm oil to supply bio diesel. Besides, continuous research is being made to determine how much of the contents of palm oil can be converted into more sophisticated products. Obviously, the development of oil palm industry will require wide range of trained personnel at various levels.
Therefore, efforts must be made to encourage more young people to pursue graduate and post-graduate programs in areas like chemistry, bio-chemistry, agronomy, bio-technology and others related to agriculture in anticipation of all sorts of agro-based industries that will come up.
Obviously, manpower planning and development will remain a real challenge for future leaders of Sarawak. For example, they must be able to convince young people to prepare themselves for jobs that will come up with the development of a number of gigantic and downstream industries towards the year 2020 and beyond.
The young people must avoid pursuing courses that will not help them to find employment in the State and country from now onward. It is the only way to overcome the problem of mismatch between courses being pursued and jobs available in the market. Ultimately, manpower planning and development must be able to strike a balance between courses being pursued and jobs available in the market.
benuasains
*Photos Source: google.com.my
