Sarawak’s urban populace is currently at 53%, which is already posing a challenge to the Goverrnment to provide basic resources like clean water, sufficient energy, infrastructure, jobs and affordable housing to the people. More importantly, the community needs the overall economic, social and environmental sustainability to move forward to become members of a developed society with high income economy towards the year 2030 and beyond.
The global forecast is that 66% of the world’s population will live in urban areas by the year 2050, Understandably, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Urban Development, is taking the challenge head on by undertaking a number of urban renewal projects, which involve the re-development of congested and un-planned settlements or dilapidated areas into a livable, vibrant, sustainable and orderly neighbourhoods and new urban centres.
Deputy Chief Minister, Datuk Amar Haji Awang Tengah Ali Hasan, who is also the Second Minister of Natural Resources and Urban Development, in his winding up speech during the debate on Budget 2018 during the recent sitting of the State Legislative Assembly, said the primary objectives of urban renewal projects were to uplift the livelihood and well – being of urban/kampung residents and provide conducive, safe and healthy living environment to the people.
More importantly, it would also enhance the income of residents through the creation of employment and business opportunities and provide affordable and quality housing for both the existing residents and their extended families. He said the policy guideline of urban renewal programme, which is founded on the concept of smart city, emphasises the usage of digital technology in managing the environment that is more intergrated and efficient in nature.
Datuk Amar Awang Tengah said seven urban renewal projects are in various stages of planning and development by Land Custody Development Authority (LCDA) or PELITA. They are Darul Hana, Kampung Sungai Bedaun, Kampung Sejingkat, KampungTabuan Melayu in Kuching, Kampung Datu Baru and Kemuyang in Sibu and Kampung Baru, Kapit. At the same time, rural development will give special consideration to the development of service centres to enable the people to benefit from the fruits of development in a more equitable manner.
Ultimately, the development, which will take time, will be able to narrow the economic gap between the urban and rural areas. Some of the new township projects being developed are in Sebuyau, Matu and Daro. He believed the integrated development of rural areas, which is being supported by the development of public utilities, places to do business and facilities for ICT, can be expected to expedite and accelerate economic activities especially the development of rural industries, which should be able to raise the income level of the rural people.
Datuk Amar Awang Tengah said his Ministry, as a way forward, will undertake a number of key initiatives in urban renewals, which include formulating the state urban renewal Implementation guideline, which will be used to guide agencies in the implementation of various urban renewal projects and programmes in a more systematic and integrated manner; and establishing a digital platform for the creation and sharing of urban indicators and database.
He said the database and urban indicators, for example, could be used for planning, decisionmaking and monitoring purposes under the State Big Data Initiative. Presently, the data is scattered among the various agencies not readily available. Currently, the application for subdivision and development of land by developers is done manually. He said the State Planning Authority (SPA) must improve on service delivery in line with advancement in digital technology.
It should endeavour to be on track in implementing technology driven processes that will facilitate the preparations of structure and local plans and other planning functions. The eSPA, for example, is on-line in planning submission system, which is expected to be fully implemented in 2018.
Further, being the custodian of data depository, SPA must manage and integrate data from the Government departments and agencies such as JKR , DID, SESCO and the Local Authorities to eventually come up with a functional 3D City Modelling System that will facilitate fast and informed decision making process. Datuk Amar Awang Tengah said his Ministry is now in the process of updating the Strata Titles Ordinance 1995, may amend certain provisions of its Ordinance to take into consideration certain matters like gated and guarded community scheme.
The titles of ownership will only be issued once the developer of the strata property fulfills the criteria as stated in the Strata Titles Ordinance 1995. In this regards, the Government does not differentiate whether the projects are being developed by Government agency or private private sector. But they must comply to all the criteria before the strata title can be issued.
Datuk Amar Awang Tengah said his MInistry through PELITA is developing the Food Production Zone in an area with a total acreage of 321 hectares in Kuala Baram; the area has been sub-divided into 23 lots and rented out to 11 participants He said the plan for the development of phase II of Daro new town ship has been revised to include buildings that can accommodate cottage industries and affordable shophouses that can be bought by local Bumiputra entrepreneurs.
The phase II of new Daro township will be implemented in phases after getting the approval of the State Planning Authority. The project is expected to complete in the year 2020. He said the revision of the plan will be able to provide opportunities for local Bumiputra entrepreneurs to own business premises at lower costs as compared to the development of ordinary shophouses.
He said the structural plan for the development of commercial centre in Matu town, which has been submitted to the Government, takes into consideration the requests of the local people for “pasar tamu”. Meanwhile, the site for the new district office will be at the new service centre at Bruan. Datuk Amar Awang Tengah said Muara Tabuan and Kampung Sejingkat have already been earmarked for the development of new township and Kampung extension by the State Government, which has already identified land that will be affected, through PELITA. The detailed plan has already been submitted to the State Planning Authority.
He said PELITA will submit a revised plan for the development of new Simunjan township for consideration by the State Planning Authority. The components comprise housing, government office buildings, conventional shophouses that can be bought by local Bumiputra entrepreneurs, buildings for small and medium entrepreneurs and others that can benefit the local people.
He said the State government, with the commitment to implement the policy of sustainable management of Forests, wants to ensure that Forests can continue to make significant contribution to the growth of the economy. In this regards, the Ministry of urban development and Natural Resources, in collaboration with Forestry agencies like Sarawak Forestry Department, Sarawak Forestry Corporation, STIDC and Harwood Timber Sdn. Bhd. are in the process of reviewing policies relating to forestry and timber industry to ensure that they take into consideration the current development that can give optimum benefits to the State of Sarawak. Datuk Amar Awang Tengah said the State Government is reviewing the State Forestry Policy, the certification of Forest Management, development of forestry estate, forest products and timber industry development plan, the supply of raw materials for timber industry and the fixing of cess for downstream products, to update them in coping with the current and future challenges in timber development.
He said the forestry agencies have indeed made significant progress on the development and adoption of advanced digital technologies for forest management. In this regards, the existing REVLOG system for revenue collection and tracking of log movement has been upgraded with additional capacities for enhancement along the chain of custody.
He said the State Government, to strengthen the management of forest resources, will be utilizing the latest digital technologies, which will enable the State to carry out detailed Stand Diagnostics wherein efforts will be able to analyse the composition of forests in terms of species and biomass; 3D Laser Mapping for capturing structural dimension for forest stand; Big Data (Geospatial) Analytics for Forest Stand Evaluation and automated assessment of degraded landscape. Datuk Amar Awang Tengah said the State Government has set a target of six (6) million hectares of land to be gazetted as permanent Forests. A total of 4.32 million hectares, which represent 72% of total area have been gazetted by the end of October, 2017. The Government is also targeting to gazette one (1) million hectares of land as Totally Protected Areas (TPAs).
The Government has already gazetted 948,034.40 hectares of areas comprising 716,084.40 hectares of terrestrial land and 231,954.00 hectares of water bodies as TPAs. He said the State government through Sarawak Forests Department is working together with Malaysian Timber Certification Counci l (MTCC) to ensur e Forests license can get the certification under Malaysian Timber Certification Scheme (MTCS), which is being recognized under the Program ForThe Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC), the biggest international certification scheme.
At the same time, the State government is actively implementing a legal system namely Sarawak Timber Legality Verification System (STLVS), which has been documented based on Inter Agency Standard Operation Procedure (SOP) for forestry and timber industry. The legal system is to verify the rightful source of timber and timber products being produced in Sarawak for international market.
The STLVS Standard was developed into a formal due diligence system which allows for third party audit verification.
This verification covers the whole process of timber harvesting from licensing to manufacturing and trading of logs and timber products. Datuk Amar Awang Tengah said the State government through the initiative Heart of Borneo (HoB) programme, has forged co-operation with Negara Brunei Darussalam and Indonesia (Kalimantan) for the Trans – boundary Conservation of forests, which stretch from Batang Ai to Lawas in Sarawak.
He said the State Government is committed to preserve the forestry sector and has decided to enlarge about 600,000 hectares of more areas in HoB towards Tanjung Datu, which will enlarge HoB in Sarawak from 2.1 million to 2.7 million hectares. The areas involved will be Kel ingkang Range, Bungoh Range, Tanjung Datu National Park, Gunung Apeng National Park, Gunung Pueh National Park, Gunung Gading National Park, Samunsam Wild Life Sanctuary, Kubah National Park, Matang Wildlife Centre, Bako National Park and Bako-Buntal Bird Flyways.
He said the State Government will continue to use the existing and new platforms to embark on important conservation undertakings. For example, on the Research for Intensified Management of Bio-Rich Areas of Sarawak (RIMBA SARAWAK ) platform, the State has embarked on pioneering work on hornbill conservation, which will be carried out in collaboration with the world’s foremost authority and experts from Thailand. Besides, the State will also under take s cient i f ic s tudies, build up local expertise through Conservation Internship Programme whereby local scientists collaborate to undertake research projects in forestry with world renowned institutions such as Royal Botanical Garden, Edinburgh UK, Smithsonian Institution, USA and Hornbill Re s e a r c h o f Fo u n d a t i o n , Thailand.
Datuk Amar Awang Tengah said the State government is taking proactive steps to ensure sufficient supply of woods to meet the requirements of local industries and reduce dependence on natural forests. For this reason, the emphasis is being made on the development Industrial Forest. An allocation of RM15 million has been set aside for the Research and Development (R&D) progam with the objective to identify fast growing plants that can grow healthy, not proned to diseases and adaptive to local environment.
Besides, the State Government through Yayasan Sarawak will provide loans and educational scholarships for local students to pursue studies on Forestry at the institutions of higher learning both local and abroad. Datuk Amar Awang Tengah said the export value of timber products from Sarawak to oversea markets is RM4.61 billion until the third quarter of 2017. Nearly 90% or RM4.13 billion from the total export value is being contributed by four main products namely plywood with the value of RM2.47 billion, logs value at RM936 million, sawn timber value at RM595 million and veneer value RM135 million.
The five main markets are Japan, India, Korea, countries in the Middle East and Taiwan, which contribute to the export value of RM3.76 bilion. The S t a t e Gov e rnment , through Sarawak Timber Industry Development Corporat ion (STIDC), is implementing a longterm Strategic Plan or the Timber Industry Transformation Plan (2015-2030) to transform the current timber industry structure from heavily dependent on primary and secondary-based industry to tertiary industry focusing on the development of the furniture and value -added industry.
Among the on-going activities to realize the plan are the setting up of timber trading centre as a platform to distribute raw materials required by the SMEs and furniture manufacturers, the setting up of furniture testing lab in Kota Samarahan and the establishment of a pool of young furniture designers as well as the proposal to establish furniture villages.
The efforts are being implemented in collaboration with the timber industry players and other agencies and research institutions. Currently, a number of major timber operators such as Samling Group of Companies, RH Group of Companies, Ta Ann Group of Companies and Shin Yang Group of Companies are already involved in the manufacturing of furniture.
Besides, the State Government has increased the log quota from 70 percent to 80 percent of the log production to supplement the needs for sufficient supply of raw materials of the downstream industry.
The strategic plan covers a period from 2015 until 2030. Datuk Amar Awang Tengah said the State Government has decided, since the State has made significant progress in enhancing the furniture industry, to increase the log quota for downstream activities from 70 percent to 80 percent of the production; this is for timber downstream industries.
The State Governmwent will be collaborating with all the agencies and other institutions of higher learning such as UNIMAS to develop young designers for furniture and continuous efforts will be made in this direction. This will take time as it must be done step by step; at least the framework has already been emplaced.
