Sabah Plans To Increase Its Visibility, Attract More FDI To The State

From Nur Ashikin Abdul Aziz

SINGAPORE, Aug 28 (Bernama) -- The Sabah government is focusing on efforts to increase its visibility among foreign investors towards achieving its goal of becoming an industrial state by 2040, according to Sabah Minister of Industrial Development and Entrepreneurship Datuk Phoong Jin Zhe.

Speaking to Bernama on the sidelines of The Business Show Asia here, he said that besides participating in more conferences and exhibitions, the state government is also ensuring the local manpower and facilities are industry-ready.

"I found out through programmes like today’s, at the international level, that many people actually don't know about Sabah and what we can offer. So it is important for us to increase Sabah's visibility.

“Another one is training. If we want high quality investment, we need high quality manpower, so we are working with several training institutes to train Sabahans, so that they can contribute to the industry that we are going to tap into such as the green sector and renewable energy,” he said.

Phoong said that to increase its visibility, Sabah will also introduce two new industrial parks in Kota Belud and Kimanis, to add to the already established three major parks -- Kota Kinabalu Industrial Park (KKIP), POIC Lahad Datu, and Sipitang Oil and Gas Industrial Park (SOGIP).

“These developments are part of our broader strategy to expand our industrial infrastructure and support economic diversification and industrialisation,” he said, adding that the state had total investments of more than RM11 billion in 2022 and 2023.

At the event, Phoong witnessed the signing of a letter of intent (LoI) between Sabah’s KKIP Aviation Training Centre (KATC) and Singapore’s DroneDash Technologies for collaboration in training on drones for cargo delivery services.

KATC chief executive officer Datuk Dr Mohd Dali Isa said that through the future collaboration, DroneDash will provide its expertise to train Sabah youths at KATC as drone engineers, technicians and pilots "so that they know how to operate relatively large-scale drones for cargo handling”.

“For now we have not yet determined the number of trainees who will be involved in this programme which is still in the planning stage," he said.

This initiative will equip the local workforce with essential skills, support the existing industrial parks and contribute to the development of two new industrial parks in Sabah, driving innovation to the state. 

Meanwhile, Phoong also witnessed the memorandum of agreement (MoA) signing between Hong Xin Food Sdn Bhd and Alkemal Singapore Pte Ltd on the distribution of the former’s Tem Tem Tempeh Chips in Singapore’s market.

The chips available in original and Tadong (red rice) variations will now be available at 30 Sheng Siong Supermarket outlets, a leading retail chain in the republic.

Hong Xin Food founder Cherry Ding Chew Li said she hoped the agreement will help to increase visibility of the brand and products, as well as attract more investors.

“We are a young startup opened in December 2021 during the pandemic, started manufacturing from home and with more demand, we already have a factory in Kota Kinabalu, with small-scale production for now. We hope with more investors, we can increase our production and export to more countries,” she said.

Also present was Malaysia’s High Commissioner to Singapore Datuk Dr Azfar Mohamad Mustafar.

-- BERNAMA