KUCHING: Chong Chieng Jen, being in the same coalition as Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, should have played a greater role in fighting for more business opportunities for Sarawak, says Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) Women chief Kho Teck Wan.
Sarawak Pakatan Harapan (PH) chairman Chong is also the Padungan assemblyman, Stampin MP and Sarawak Democratic Action Party (DAP) chairman.
Kho said this when responding to Chong’s recent statement – he had urged the Sarawak government to take proactive steps to engage more Sarawakian entrepreneurs and businesses to participate in the Malaysia-China economic cooperation initiated by the federal government.
“Why blame SUPP again? Why didn’t Chong fight for Sarawak himself? Is he incapable of doing so despite being in the mutual coalition with Anwar (both in PH)?” she questioned.
She reminded Chong that Bandar Kuching and Stampin, both represented by DAP for years, are urban areas with many businesses.
Yet, there are no signatories from Sarawak in the recent historic signing of 19 memorandums of understanding (MOUs) between Chinese and Malaysian businesses, amounting to RM170bil in investment deals, she said.
DAP, Kho added, had the highest number of MPs (40) in the federal government, including five from Sarawak while there are only two MPs from SUPP.
“Why didn’t Chong question his own PH chairman (Anwar) on the lack of Sarawak signatories for the MoUs? Why blame SUPP? Why was he excluded from Anwar’s official trip to China from March 29 to April 1?
“As much as Chong wants to claim that the Sarawak government was not pro-active enough, the fact is that under the Gabungan Parti Sarawak leadership, the trade volume between Sarawak and China had risen to RM27.05bil in 2021 despite the pandemic.”
Kho stressed that instead of relying on the federal government’s initiatives, the Sarawak government took its own initiatives to set up the Sarawak Trade and Tourism Office Singapore (Statos) in 2019 to facilitate trade between Singapore and Sarawak.
Apart from that, Sarawak collaborated with Indonesia to build a hydro dam in its new capital city Nusantara and strengthened ties with Brunei through the planned road network development.
“Instead of merely paying lip service, I urge Chong to take real action, to benefit the business communities, especially the constituents,” said Kho.
