(From right) Ewon, Awang Tengah and Malcolm before the meeting.
KUCHING (Feb 9): Deputy Premier of Sarawak Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hasan has asked the federal government to help finance the establishment of business premises for the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the state.
He said aside from providing premises for heavy industry, Sarawak also wants to focus on building industrial estates and business premises for the SMEs, including in the rural areas.
“That is why we want the federal government to give us allocation to create and establish these premises.
“This is important because all this while, to establish the industrial estate or business premises for our SMEs, they were mainly funded by the state government.
“So it is high time that the federal look into this, after all this is good for the SMEs; as you all know very well, SMEs constitute about 98 per cent of the business establishments, it’s the backbone of the economy for our nation,” he said.
He was speaking to reporters after a meeting with the Minister of Entrepreneur Development and Cooperatives (Kuskop) Datuk Ewon Benedick at the Borneo Convention Centre Kuching (BCCK) today.
The state Minister of International Trade and Investment pointed out that the establishment of business premises for SMEs in Sarawak is something that Kuskop should focus on.
He said aside from that, Sarawak also wished to see further improvement especially in terms of coordination between all entrepreneur development agencies at both state and national level.
He said Sarawak has got the entrepreneur development coordination committee, which coordinates all the entrepreneur development programmes like providing basic infrastructure, business premises and industrial estates for the SMEs.
“We also want all the agencies under Kuskop to coordinate the national programmes such as financial assistance, skills training for the SMEs with us.
“We have to develop programmes to help the SMEs promote and market their products, especially through online.
“We cannot just focus on one area only. That is not good. We want to see development in the SME sector to be further improved or enhanced from time to time,” he said.
Earlier, Awang Tengah received a courtesy visit from Ewon Benedick and his entourage.
During the meeting, he briefed Ewon regarding the development of entrepreneurs in Sarawak.
Several suggestions for improvements, resolutions and collaborations were proposed to Kuskop for the benefit of entrepreneurs in Sarawak.
Also present at the ceremony were Deputy Minister of International Trade and Investment Datuk Dr Malcolm Mussen Lamoh, Deputy Minister of Youth, Sports and Entrepreneur Development Dr Ripin Lamat, Kuskop secretary general Dato Sri Suriani Ahmad, advisor to the Sarawak Ministry of International Trade and Investment Datuk Mohd Naroden Majais, acting permanent secretary to the Sarawak Ministry of International Trade and Investment Dzulkornain Masron and senior officers of Kuskop.
