Warisan said the production and export of raw commodities does not benefit Sabahans much in terms of job creation and socioeconomic upgrades.
PETALING JAYA: Warisan has criticised Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) for lacking specific policies to improve Sabah’s economy and failing to build local industries for the past three years.
In a statement, Warisan said Sabah is too dependent on exports of raw commodities such as natural gas, crude petroleum and crude palm oil.
“The state’s failure to build local manufacturing and downstream industries for the third year in a row shows that the coalition does not have any specific policies to improve the economy,” said the party.
Citing information from the statistics department, Warisan said Sabah’s total export revenue in 2022 was RM77.2 billion.
Of this RM77.2 billion, 39.3% was contributed by the export of crude petroleum (RM30.3 billion), 27.4% by the export of crude palm oil (RM21.1 billion) and 6.7% by the export of natural gas (RM5.2 billion).
Warisan said although the state government collected taxes from these sectors, the production and export of raw commodities does not benefit Sabahans much in terms of job creation and socioeconomic upgrades.
It said this was also the reason why Malaysia turned to industrialisation in the early 1980s.
Warisan said in comparison to Sabah’s RM77.2 billion in total export revenue, the corresponding figure for Sarawak was almost double at RM153 billion.
It also noted that 27.5% (RM42.1 billion) of Sarawak’s total export revenue was derived from the manufacturing industry related to metal products, iron and steel products, electrical and electronic goods, and chemical products.
“While the GRS leaders are bragging to the people of Sabah about the great job they did when the state posted an increase in exports last year, little did they know that the export value of Sarawak’s local manufacturing industry alone (RM42.1 billion) is already more than half of Sabah’s total export value (RM77.2 billion),” said Warisan.
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