STOCKHOLM: Deputy Premier of Sarawak, Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hasan conducted a 2-day working visit to Stockholm, Sweden to promote Sarawak as investment destination for Swedish investors while exploring areas for collaboration on forest management, plantation and technology to process planted timber species.
This trip is to reciprocate the invitation extended by Minister for International Development Corporation for Sweden Johan Forssel during their meeting last year.
Datuk Amar Awang Tengah led a delegation for a meeting with the Swedish State Secretary to the Ministry of Rural Affairs and Infrastructure Dan Ericsson.
During the meeting, he said that Sarawak recognises Sweden’s successes in the field of forest management, forest plantation and forest based downstream industry and would like to foster collaboration on how to further optimise the economic benefits of forestry sector in Sarawak.
This is proven through the annual log production of about 80 million cubic metres of logs from their forest.
Datuk Amar Awang Tengah hoped that Sweden and Sarawak could initiate collaborations between agencies and private sectors in areas like forest management, digital technology application, human capital development and timber processing.
The delegation were briefed on the Swedish forest industries road to the future where by 2040 the forest industry’s climate change benefit shall increase by 30 percent, wood-based products shall be fossil-free and recyclable and Sweden shall have flourishing forest rich in biodiversity.
Later, Datuk Amar Awang Tengah had a meeting the Forest Department and Swedish Forest Agency to understand the overview of forest management policy and practices in Sweden.
To support the forestry sector, Sweden promotes research and innovation is six key areas such as forest tree breeding, value chain for circular bio economy, efficient operational systems, silviculture for different goals, opportunities for digitalization and social benefits.
In this regard, Sarawak through the Forest Department would like to collaborate with Sweden on tree breeding to support the aspiration of producing high quality seedlings for forest plantation.
This is crucial to support the aspiration to improve the current yield of forest plantation in Sarawak.
Joining the Deputy Premier for this working visit are Swedish Ambassador to Malaysia Dr Joachim Bengstrom, Deputy Minister for Urban Planning, Land Administration and Natural Resources Datuk Len Talif Salleh, Advisor to the Ministry of International Trade, Industry and Investment (MINTRED) Dato Sri Mohd Naroden Majais, Director of Forests, Datu Hamden Mohammad, Permanent Secretary of MINTRED, Dzulkornain Masron, General Manager of Sarawak Timber Industry Development Corporation (STIDC), Zainal Abidin Abdullah, Advisor to STIDC, Datu Hashim Bojet, CEO of Invest Sarawak Timothy Ong, General Manager of Sarawak Planted Forest Sdn Bhd, Paul Valentine, and CEO of PUSAKA Capital Sdn Bhd, Mohd Nor Topek Julaihi. - UKASnews
