Sarawak Premier confirms Putrajaya has agreed to give Sarawak permits now
Sarawak Premier Tan Sri Abang Johari Openg has announced that Putrajaya has agreed to give Approved Permits (APs) to the state to import 1,000 units of electric vehicles (EVs) and hydrogen-powered vehicles to Sarawak. He added that the federal government has also agreed to give tax exemption to import these vehicles to the state.
Tan Sri Abang Johari Openg, when officiating at the commencement of delivery of gas by the Bintulu Additional Gas Facility (BAGSF-2) to a new state-owned methanol plant Petchem Sdn Bhd in Bintulu, stated, “These are the first incentives that we have received from the federal government.”
Moreover, he said the incentives were accorded to Sarawak and also stressed that petrochemical and power industries are two important approaches to achieve the state’s Post-Covid-19 Development Strategy (PCDS 2023) that is designed to upgrade the state as a developed status.
He said he is very keen to see the growth of these two sectors contributing to the creation of 195,000 jobs in Sarawak in the effort to narrow the development gap between urban and rural Sarawak.
Abang Johari also mentioned that he has requested Petchem Sdn Bhd to review its decision to build a second methanol plant, and instead switch to the setting up of a blue ammonia plant in Bintulu and that there is a market for blue ammonia, especially in Europe, Far East and Asean countries.
On top of that, the Sarawak Premier expressed hope that the gas from Petronas will be sufficient to produce blue ammonia for the market and even said the Petronas-Sarawak collaboration can be further expanded, particularly on the downstream activities that will add value to the available feedstock of gas.
He said the Sarawak government intends to explore the possibilities of other products from the gas and that he has also briefed the federal Cabinet two days ago on the state’s direction as far as energy is concerned.
What’s more, the Sarawak Premier said Sarawak has already positioned itself by supplying power to West Kalimantan and Sarawak Energy Berhad (SEB) has invested in a hydro dam in East Kalimantan adding that SEB is upgrading its power plant in Miri that will supply power to Sabah and Brunei.
“We are also going to develop the cascading dams which have the potential to produce 20,000 megawatts of power that will be environmentally friendly,” Abang Johari concluded. Hopefully this brings Sarawak up in terms of EV development as the rest of Peninsular Malaysia sooner rather than later.
We got all this from Daily Express News and their full article is linked here. Thank you Daily Express News for the information and images.
