By Nancy Nais
KUCHING, Aug 23: Thailand ambassador to Malaysia Narong Sasitorn acknowledged that in order for his country to succeed in its business trade with Malaysia, they have to come to Sarawak.
Speaking at the “Trade and Investment Relations between Thailand and Sarawak” forum today, he said Thai business players are already in Sarawak, such as CP, one of the top conglomerates, and recently PTTEP, their national oil company that has come to Sarawak in a big way by taking over Murphy’s Oil assets, as well as investing in some exploration blocks.
“I also see a lot of potential in business links between BIMP-EAGA and mainland Southeast Asia, the two hub regions of high economic growth. Thailand and Sarawak can play a very important role in this linkage,” he added.
Among the areas of corporation, he believed they should explore into agriculture especially agricultural technology and food technology, automotive parts supply chain, downstream activities of petrochemical products, tourism, medical tourism, education and digital economy.
“For this reason, the Thai government will support every effort to promote closer ties and contact between Thailand and Sarawak,” he said.
More than 10 Thai companies and representatives including Thai Chamber of Commerce, Federation of Thai Industries and Thai-Malaysia Business Council are here in Kuching for the forum.
Sasitorn opined that the new capital of Indonesia in Kalimantan meant a huge surge of investment, urbanisation and thus consumption in Borneo, giving Sarawak the opportunity to play an important role in this new regional development. — DayakDaily
