THE state economy is projected to grow at 5 percent in 2019.
When tabling the State Budget 2019 at the State Legislative Assembly sitting yesterday, Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg said this was despite the volatility created by the trade tensions between China and the United States.
Abang Johari said the China-US trade war would affect Sarawak because its economy was strongly linked to the global market.
He said Sarawak also took note of the federal government’s decision to cut spending, which was likely to negatively affect the economic growth of the state.
However, the Chief Minister was intent on mitigating these downsides, saying the state government was ready to provide allocation to finance priority, high impact and people-centric projects.
He reasoned that with the injection of higher public investment, the state’s economic growth would be kept on an even keel.
He said his projection of 5 percent growth took into consideration all this, including the positive showing in 2018 of critical sectors namely, services sector (6.4 percent), manufacturing (3.5 percent), mining (2.6 percent), agriculture (1.8 percent) and construction (5.1 percent).
He said the positive trend in 2018 was expected to extend into 2019 with top performer services sector continuing to get the support of the wholesale and retail trade sub-sector.
“The higher lending activity also supported the growth of the finance and insurance sub-sector,” he noted.
He further noted that the construction sector, the state’s second best performer, was expected to remain strong, mainly because of the continuation in the implementation of projects under the Eleventh Malaysia Plan (11MP), particularly infrastructure projects, Rural Transformation Programmes, Rural Electricity Supply, Rural Water Supply projects and property development.
