Huge Nusantara impact on Sabah
Published on: Wednesday, January 19, 2022
By: Hayati Dzulkifli
.jpg "Huge Nusantara impact on Sabah")
Kota Kinabalu: The relocation of Indonesia’s capital from Jakarta to Kalimantan will further boost existing trade ties with Sabah, said Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Mohd Noor. He said the State Government is looking forward to further strengthen their mutual trade benefits following expected greater economic spin-offs.“It is named as Nusantara, a name that is great. The shift from Java to Kalimantan will have a huge impact on Sabah and Sarawak, economically.
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“The positive effect will be that Sabah and Kalimantan will benefit abundance of economic and trade opportunities between the two territories. At this time we have close ties with Indonesia, especially North Kalimantan,” he said.
Hajiji said this after witnessing the signing of three MoUs between the State Government and three companies – Borneomed Sdn Bhd, SBH Kibing Solar New Materials (M) Sdn Bhd, and Yayasan Sabah with Pavilion Kota Kinabalu Sdn Bhd at Sabah International Convention Centre (SICC), Tuesday.
Sabah already has existing close ties with Indonesia through the BIMP-EAGA (Brunei Darusalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines - East Asian Growth Area).
“On our side we already have BIMP-EAGA where all this while the economic and tourism sectors are being carried out between these two territories (Sabah and Kalimantan),” he said.
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On the MoUs, Hajiji is hopeful they would stimulate the State’s economic growth and create thousands of job opportunities.
“For example, we saw earlier the artistic impression of upcoming project of Pavilion Harbour City where a MoU was signed between Yayasan Sabah and a company, Pavilion Kota Kinabalu Sdn Bhd.
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“The investment allocation is between RM2 and RM3 billion that creates between 3,000 and 4,000 jobs,” he said.
By having these projects, locals do not have to look for jobs outside Sabah like in Kuala Lumpur, Johor Baru and even overseas.
He said even the development of integrated herbal plantation on a large scale via the signing of MoU between the State Government through the Sabah Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and BorneoMed Sdn Bhd with an investment of RM350 million would provide between 300 and 500 jobs.
ON a claim that Sabah MIC Chairman Peer Mohamed Kadir, who was appointed to the board of State Government-linked company Sawit Kinabalu may have obtained Malaysian citizenship through dubious means, Hajiji said he will investigate.
He said he only knew about the claim through social media.
“We will investigate this allegation and the name mentioned is the one we appointed as Sawit Kinabalu board member who is Sabah MIC Chairman and a Barisan Nasional (BN) component party,” he said.
Last weekend, activist groups in Sabah questioned the identity of Peer Mohamad, who allegedly shares the same name as an individual from India who entered the state in 1984, and was a witness in the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on illegal immigration in Sabah in 2013.
The individual, who was the 116th witness in the RCI, confessed to obtaining a Malaysian identity card through dubious means allegedly with the help of an uncle, after coming to Sabah in 1984 from Chennai, India.
The groups called for the State Government to provide a clarification as the man with this name was also among those who claimed that he had obtained a Malaysian identity card through illegitimate means.
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