KUCHING, February 7, 2022 - Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Openg has today said Sarawak supplies 70% of Malaysia’s liquefied natural gas (LNG), but only consumes less than 5% of Malaysia’s total production.
He said there is a pressing need to intensify localisation of gas supply and utilisation to further industrialise Sarawak in the next five to 10 years in order for the state to increase high value downstream economic activities.
“At the same time, we are also exploring new oil and gas blocks onshore and offshore to ensure volumes are available for Sarawak’s journey towards industrialisation,” he said when launching Action and Implementation Plan (AIP) for PCDS 2030 here today.
He said the state government has established the Sarawak Gas Roadmap (SGR) 2030 with the aim to localise 1,200 million standard cubic feet per day by 2030.
“There are USD$25 billion investment opportunities for private sectors to catalyse on our economy through various petrochemical downstream industries.
“Midstream petrochemical industries such as methanol, ammonia, hydrogen and polyethylene will further enhance our existing downstream manufacturing ecosystem and create more business opportunities,” the chief minister said.
He stressed once implemented, Sarawak will create additional 15,000 jobs in oil and gas sector by 2030.
He said having petrochemical derivatives capacities also position Sarawak in the global manufacturing supply chain ecosystem.
He recalled that the state government had signed the Commercial Settlement Agreement (CSA) with PETRONAS on December 7, 2020, which among others,, provides Sarawak with a greater share of revenues from oil and gas found in Sarawak.
“It also provides for a more active involvement by Sarawak in the oil and gas industry by creating and maintaining a stable, conducive business and investment environment for the sustainable growth of the oil and gas industry, both upstream and downstream in Sarawak,” he said.
On AIP for PCDS 2030, he said it is an innovative way for the state to ensure all the initiatives are aligned to Post Covid-19 Development Strategy (PCDS 2030) aspirations.
“I am confident that we can deliver the development objectives of the plan as we have clear measurable outcomes for the initiatives and action steps to achieve the goals laid out in the AIP,” he said.
The chief minister also said he reorganised his ministries with the aim to focus on areas where it matters most in PCDS 2030.
“The reorganisation will further strengthen our service delivery especially in this challenging time and addressing high expectation of the rakyat.
“The AIP of the ministries and the departments and agencies under them will give greater transparency and accountability, because what gets measured gets done according to specification, time and resources,” he said.
State Secretary Datuk Amar Jaul Samion said AIP is a detailed plan outlining specific actions needed to achieve PCDS 2030 outcomes and aspirations, mainly:
1. To ensure implementing agencies are very clear about their planned outcomes;
2. To be certain on the actions on how to achieve the outcomes and aspirations; and
3. To ensure continuity in the implementation of the Plan to cater for changes in leadership of the implementing agencies in the future. People may come and go, but AIP remains for at least 10 years.
“In executing AIP, it is extremely crucial for ministries and its agencies to be mindful of the need to change the way we work,” he said.
Jaul also asked the ministries and agencies to undertake seven key actions, and these are:
1. Actively review, refine or propose new policies for the sectors such as Mining Policy;
2. Constantly study or review the existing Ordinance or propose new ordinance to cater for the new policies or to circumvent hurdles in our implementation process;
3. To improve, change or totally revamp current procedures to be relevant to the current situation such as improvement on the procedures for ease of doing business;
4. Actively engage the civil society and initiate deliberate actions to help our community particularly the poor and B40 to improve their level of income and meaningfully involve them in the ministries or agencies programmes;
5. Develop clear Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and targets as well as definite actions together with the timelines for each activity to track progress and achievements of individual officers or sectors in the department;
6. Promote active collaboration across the Ministries, Departments, and Agencies as well as close collaboration with the Federal Agencies to ensure the State’s interests are taken into consideration; The days of silo mentality are over. State interests should now override departmental interests, and
7. To have active engagements with private sector to develop workable business models for economic projects such as agropark, petrochemical hub and digital transformation.
With AIP in place, he said the ministries, departments and agencies are now more equipped with the knowledge on the requirements to implement the initiatives as well as to manage it for economic prosperity, social inclusivity and environmental sustainability, the 3 pillars of PCDS 2030.
“All ministries, departments and agencies are now required to form a dedicated team to manage their respective AIPs to ensure their initiatives are implemented according to scope, resources and timeline and support the three pillars of PCDS 2030.
“At the State Level, we need a strong monitoring mechanism to track the implementation status of the various programmes.
“We acknowledge that Civil Service is the implementer of PCDS 2030 initiatives.
Our role is to ensure to the successful implementation of these initiatives and to facilitate private investment to grow the economy.
“The Civil Service also needs to ensure these initiatives benefit the rakyat, with emphasis on strong community participation in the various socio-economic sectors.
“Beyond AIP, the ministries, department and agencies need creative solutions to finance these initiatives as our financial resources cannot support all these initiatives.
“Agencies should not depend entirely on state funding but need to explore wider options such as Federal Government and private sector, and others,” Jaul said.
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