KUCHING: SUPP secretary general Dato’ Sebastian Ting believed Sarawak is moving in the right direction in working China multinational company Huawei to develop an e-wallet or digital payment system to be called ‘Sarawak Pay’ to enhance its development of financial technology.
Ting said if one had gone down to China a couple of years ago, at that time, using credit card was an issue.
“The payment last time was cash, then credit card and then now e-payment. China has actually leap-frogged from cash-economy straight to e-payment.
“So the success is there. It becomes so important actually that when you go to there, you don’t even have to bring money. Money will be for some small change but the bigger part of transaction will be the e-payment and it is very useful,” he said when asked to comment by the media when met at the presentation of Lea Holdings Sdn Bhd’s sponsorship to Miri Division Football Association for the Miri-LSC League Football Championship 2017 at Lea Sports Centre, Sarawak Plaza here Wednesday.
“And indeed sometime that is what we and other people will do. And that is because in China, ordinary shops will go e-payment. At the foodstalls and buying fruits also payments are done by e-payment. So eventually all these things will be the in-thing. So hopefully Sarawak will be the same, ” added Ting, who is also the Piasau assemblyman and patron of the Miri Division Football Association. According to Ting, what the State is doing is something good and we are moving forward.
“This augurs well and that is what we call digital economy plus other things. All these will be coming naturally and we are moving in the right direction,” he added.
He said he won’t know when it will be implemented in State , but he said this is done already in other countries, especially in China where it is so successful.
“It is the question whether the people are ready to accept it or not. Our CM is very bullish about this, when he came in as the Chief Minister and in April this year he already announced the digital economy and he already put in RM1 billion to make sure that all our system , internet speed and all these things will be there for us and I think this is fantastic.
“When we have all these speed and all these things our children will also benefit. Things will be very fast. We never know how much our children can absorb. So it is very fantastic. It is something very exciting I must say . It is another phase of development that we are going intto digital economy and this is definitely good. For us it may be a bit late but then for our children it will be fantastic,” he added.
Lea Holdings (M) Sdn Bhd’s managing director Raymond Sim Hee Pang when asked for comment said that the system is good.
“The whole world is moving in that direction. Now everyone, even the kids have a smart phone. This is the trend that we cannot go against. So for businessmen, for people running commercial, there is a lot of convenience, so when people are convenience, people will spend more , so the economy is better.
“Generally, it is a good move. It is good that the government is taking initiate to drive the economy. We are very delighted with this announcement and I hope that t this can come soonest so that you can generate a lot of interest.
