KUCHING: We have put the country on a proper footing of economic development and that the transformation of development has involved all races.
This was said by Head of State (TYT) Tun Pehin Sri Haji Abdul Taib Mahmud in his Chinese New Year message.
“The Chinese have been building up the country to become more prosperous through hard work and co-operation and in a unique way through their own small associations.
“They work together in a big movement to understand how economic life in the country can be built up by the efforts of all individual races.
“The people have been able to enjoy the fruits of hard work and the success of each community, through well organised and relatively more advanced commercial practices.
“The Chinese, for example, have been able to bring to Sarawak more orderly development.
“As we can see, Sarawak has a more orderly distribution of employment opportunities and the close relationship between all the races,” he said in his message.
Taib added that the trend towards a more prosperous society will be continued as Sarawak moves forward to become not only a developed state but the richest in the country by the year 2030.
“We have been able to rope in more and more people with real talents to make them more effective in economic development so as to enable everybody to benefit from the fruits of development.
“After many decades of working together, all the races in Sarawak, Malaysia in general, we have been able to build a pattern of economy that enables us to bring about a greater distribution of wealth even to the remote community, who used to be rural dwellers through the widespread benefits of education among children to play greater part in economic development.
“As we can see today, although not completely, at least the trend now is quite strong that every race will benefit from whatever greater achievements that the country will be able to get through the development of resources and the co-operation between all races.
“This change in our midst has brought about greater unity among the people, greater co-operation between the races and much greater deployment of talents and skills and the ability to expand economic activities mainly through the consolidation of traditional economic base and developing the prosperity from simple agriculture into much more economic activities,” he said.
He added that the people that the more prosperous a country becomes, more economic activities will flow in which will benefit the rural community.
“Look at our rural areas today, they have been producing not only the agricultural products or primary products but have been able to produce human capital for development.
“The development of our economy is getting more sophisticated. The kinds of work that will grow from the development of the integration of our economy will benefit more and more races and greater co-operation among them,” he said.
He explained that the trend is going to intensify itself in the same pattern and bring together much more closely the Chinese, the Malays, the Ibans, the Bidayuhs, the Orang Ulus, all to be conscious of the fact that the country is getting more prosperous and the opportunities for their children are much more varied and much more rewarding than before.
“This is in fact what I have tried to impress all the races in Sarawak as the transformation of the development of the country and thankfully we have achieved a great deal of it with greater promises for the future.
“I am now very confident that our country will take more straight forward steps into much more sophisticated economy with expanded role in the external market and drag in people of various talents and skills into the greater and modern work force of Sarawak and Malaysia.
“That is the Sarawak or Malaysia, which we have been dreaming of since more than 50 years ago and now we are able to see it happening.
“This is what I want all the people to understand when we review our position from time to time. During the Chinese New Year, when I have the opportunity to talk I will reveal this bit by bit to all the people, to all races, not only to the Chinese, so that they know we have been on the right path economic development based on the agenda to become a developed State by the year 2030.
“Undoubtedly, we have put the country on a proper footing of economic development and that the transformation of development has involved all races.
“Happy New Year to all my Chinese friends and also my non-Chinese friends, who celebrate it almost the same way as the Chinese in the Sarawak way,” he said.
