Sarawak identifies site in Samarahan to expand Sama Jaya Free Industrial Zone
10 Dec 2021
The Sarawak state government has identified a new site in Samarahan as the expansion of the Sama Jaya Free Industrial Zone (FIZ) as the hightech park has nearly reached its full capacity.
Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hasan said the expansion was in line with the state government’s aims to intensify its efforts to attract more foreign direct investments (FDIs).
He noted that Sarawak has always ranked among the top four investment destinations in Malaysia for the manufacturing sector for the past many years and despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the state was still able to attract RM15.7 billion of investment in 2020.
“Sarawak has a huge landmass and abundance of natural resources, therefore, we need more FDIs to accelerate our economic growth for the benefits of the rakyat.
“We need to continue creating new business opportunities for our business community in the high-tech sector and to continue creating more high-skill employment opportunities for our graduates and school leavers,” he said during a working visit to Taiyo Yuden (Sarawak) Sdn Bhd’s new investment project at the Sama Jaya FIZ.
Also present was Taiyo Yuden managing director and chief executive officer Yoshio Akimoto.
Awang Tengah said Sama Jaya FIZ was providing employment to more than 13,700 people, where 98 per cent of the workforce are Sarawakians and almost 10 per cent of them are engineers.
He noted that the annual salaries paid to the workforce in Sama Jaya alone stood at RM598 million in 2020.
“This has further generated RM667 million annual spin-offs to our local economy, benefitting the small and medium enterprises from logistics to warehousing, machinery supplies and services, maintenance, catering, and laundry,” he noted.
Awang Tengah said the Sama Jaya FIZ has done very well even though the COVID-19 pandemic caused a global slowdown, affecting the economic growth of many countries.
The multinational corporations in Sama Jaya have successfully exported RM6.93 billion worth of goods in 2020, an increase of 27.5 per cent from RM5.43 billion in 2019 and some of the products from Sama Jaya were found in global brands such as Apple, Samsung and BMW.
Meanwhile, Yoshio said the company has invested RM700 million in Sama Jaya FIZ to build a new factory to meet further increase in demand in the future.
He added that the new factory would be operational in 2023 and would provide employment opportunities for 2,000 people.
Source: Bernama
