By Lian Cheng
KUCHING, May 6: Assistant Minister of Entrepreneur, Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Development Datuk Mohd Naroden Majais said Sarawak’s trade had remained resilient despite global economic uncertainties.
“As of 2018, the total trade value for Sarawak is RM143.7 billion, compared to RM137.6 billion in 2017, an increase of 4.4 per cent,” said Naroden
He said for the first two months of this year, total trade expanded by 9.1 per cent compared with the corresponding period last year.
“The total trade value for the first two months of 2019 is RM24.5 billion, compared to the same period in 2018, which was RM22.5 billion,” he said when replying to Telang Usan assemblyman Dennis Ngau, who raised the question of the Sarawak government’s achievement in terms of international trade in the Sarawak Legislative Assembly (DUN) today.
Naroden, who is also E-Commerce Assistant Minister, said state exports grew by 10.6 per cent from RM15.7 billion to RM17.4 billion, while imports increased slightly by 5.5 per cent from RM6.7 billion to 7.1 billion.
He said export receipts from liquified natural gas (LNG) remains the biggest contributor at 48.3 per cent, followed by crude petroleum at 11.1 per cent and palm oil at 7.8 per cent.
“Our major export partners also remain the same, namely Japan (27.4 per cent), Peninsular Malaysia (14 per cent) and China (12.4 per cent). These three markets contributed 53.8 per cent to the total export value.
“Our main import items are still machinery and transport equipment (33.8 per cent), followed by chemical product (15 per cent) and manufactured goods (11.7 per cent).
“The higher importation of machinery and transport equipment is for the construction of many major infrastructure developments in the state,” he revealed.
He said as of February 2019, among the commodities or products that continuously contribute to the state’s economy were oil and gas (64.85 per cent), manufactured goods (24.02 per cent), agriculture products (10.61 per cent) and other merchandises (0.53 per cent). — DayakDaily
