KUCHING: The effort to support the growth of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Sarawak will be strengthened through improved coordination and collaboration between agencies under both the regional and federal government.
In stating this, Deputy Premier of Sarawak Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hasan said, “We need to coordinate this. That’s why at the state level, we have established Sarawak Entrepreneur Development Coordination Committee (SEDCC) which involves all agencies, to ensure the coordination of programmes aimed at providing basic facilities, business premises, and industrial estates for SMEs.”
Awang Tengah, who is also the Minister for International Trade, Industry and Investment (MINTRED) also stressed the significance of building industrial estates and business premises in rural areas and made a personal appeal for the federal government to allocate resources towards this objective.
“This is important because it’s high time for the federal government to assist us in establishing our industrial estates for SMEs as they make up 98% of nation’s economy, so we have to focus on this,” Awang Tengah said after met with the Entrepreneur Development and Cooperatives Minister Datuk Ewon Benedick in a courtesy call at Borneo Convention Centre Kuching (BCCK) today.
“It’s important to focus on coordinating all programmes for financial assistance and not just concentrate on one area. We want to coordinate all of this, so that SMEs can benefit from all the resources available to them,” Awang Tengah added. “Furthermore, we aim to improve the skills of our SMEs and encourage them to go digital. We also need to develop programmes to help promote their products through marketing.”
Also present during the courtesy call were Deputy Minister for International Trade, Industry and Investment Datuk Dr Malcolm Mussen Lamoh, MINTRED acting permanent secretary Dzolkarnain Masron, MINTRED advisor Datuk Naroden Majais, Deputy Minister for Youth, Sports and Entrepreneur Development (Entrepreneur Development) Dr Ripin Lamat and Secretary General of the Ministry of Entrepreneur and Development Datuk Suriani Ahmad.
