Ting praises CM for his plans for Sarawakians

suppadmin | November 16, 2020

KUCHING: SUPP welcomes and fully supports the recent announcement by YAB Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari that the Sarawak government will allocate a sum of fund to ensure that all Sarawakians will have access to the vaccines for COVID-19 once it is made available and to undertake a thorough feasibility study for the establishment of a sovereign wealth fund in his DUN winding up speech last Friday, said SUPP secretary general, Datuk Sebastian Ting.

Ting said free COVID-19 vaccines for all Sarawakians and the establishment of Sarawak Sovereign Wealth Fund were 2 of the 6 resolutions proposed by SUPP to the Chief Minister when he attended our Party Convention on 18th October 2020. We are very happy, honoured, and thankful to the Chief Minister for putting a priority in protecting the health of everyone and securing a better future for all Sarawakians.

“SUPP believes that the establishment of Sarawak’s owns sovereign wealth fund is crucial to ensure that the future generations will continue to benefit from the oil and gas revenues even after the depletion of our oil and gas resources.Furthermore, as what the Chief Minister had mentioned in his winding up speech that the sovereign wealth fund can also help as a buffer in time of financial crisis so we are better prepared for any future outside disasters which could affect us as what the COVID-19 pandemic has done to cripple the world’s economy.I had spoken extensively about the establishment of Sarawak Sovereign Fund using the surplus revenues from our oil and gas sectors in Dewan Undangan Negeri during the debate of Oil Mining (Amendment) Ordinance 2018 and the debate of Tuan Yang Terutama’s opening speech back in July 2018. What we need is to ensure that Sarawak continues to be financially stable and strong for the future generations,” he said.

back then, he added, my thoughts were for our Sarawak government to establish a Sarawak Sovereign Fund similar to the one in Norway which is also known as the Oil Fund. They first discovered oil in the North Sea in 1969 but it was until 1990 that the Norwegian government established the sovereign fund to invest the surplus revenues of the Norwegian petroleum sector.

“We understand that the Norwegian sovereign fund invested into more than 9,000 companies worldwide including the likes of Apple, Nestle, Microsoft and Samsung. On average the fund owns 1.5 percent of all of the world’s listed companies. The investments are wide spread across most markets, countries and currencies to achieve broad exposure to global growth and ensure good risk diversification. It is true to say that one cannot “put all our eggs in one basket”.In the matter of 30 years, the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund which is the world’s largest grew to a staggering total of USD 1.1 trillion this year with return on investment last year of USD 180 billion. As such, with a population of 5.3 million people, each of the Norwegian benefited to almost USD 34,000 based on last year’s return on investment and the overall value of the fund is now equivalent to about USD 207,500 for every Norwegian man, woman and child. Convert into ringgit, every Norwegian would be a millionaire.How about Sarawak? Sarawak has about 11 billion barrel oil equivalent of oil reserve and about 56.4 trillion standard cubic feet of natural gas reserve for a population of just around 2.8 million people,” he wondered.

Stating that Bintulu liquefied natural gas complex is one of the largest LNG production centers in the world, Ting added, to sum up, this illustrates the huge scale of wealth that Sarawak has and with the establishment Petros, one of the brain child of our Chief Minister, and the passing of Sarawak Distribution Gas Ordinance 2016 the potential for future growth and thus wealth is tremendous.

He said by looking at these figures, with proper and prudent investment, the reputation of which Sarawak Government has all these years,

we can have a sovereign wealth fund like Norway to safeguard the well being of our people and build strong financial wealth for our future generations. We hope 30 years from now, all our children and their children will be millionaires. Indeed, he urged, let us all Unite to achieve our Sarawak dream, a prosperous and strong Sarawak and a high income Sarawak by the year 2030.