29/06/2012 (Borneo Post) - Industrial Development Minister Datuk Raymond Tan Shu Kiah stressed that the Palm Oil Industrial Cluster (POIC) development is on track and making good progress.

He described the claim by Democratic Action Party (DAP) that POIC has deviated from its focus and turned to property development as “untrue and disrespectful”, Tan said: “POIC does not build houses.”

He said there are property projects mushrooming near the POIC area in Lahad Datu, and he attributed it to the successful implementation of the palm oil industry.

“There are many housing developers such as Hap Seng who has a big land next to POIC in Lahad Datu and they are building houses.

“That is why we need POIC to be successful in order to attract property developers to the district, and I believe there is nothing wrong with this,” he said when met by reporters after launching the five-day Small Medium Enterprises/One District One Industry (SME/ODOI) Carnival at the Likas Sports Complex yesterday.

Tan said it is a normal scenario that is happening in other countries too, and it is important to develop an industry to lure investors to do business in the state.

“It does not matter what type of investment you are bringing to the district, whether it is property or food, for as long as you play your role to help develop the area.

“I think in Sabah, DAP is not happy because we are doing well. For this first quarter alone, we attracted some RM10 billion investment to Sabah, a 10-fold increase from RM1 billion during the same period last year. We even did better than Penang who dropped to only about RM800 million,” he said.

“Last year, during the same period, Penang topped the list with some RM9 billion investment and suddenly this year they dropped to less than a billion. I think DAP should be more worried about Penang,” he quipped.

Tan attributed the massive increase in investment to the sound state management, saying that their biggest secret is to offer close partnership with the investors by ensuring their needs are met.

“We would ask them about their problems and find remedies. We work with investors and help them by providing them with incentives that they might not find elsewhere.

“The state government makes sure their interests are protected; we do not want the investment to fail as it would create a bad name for us … we have good corporate governance,” he said.

Tan said there is no reason for DAP to have a statement so negative about Sabah.

“Do not belittle us as it took a lot of time and effort to grow from RM1 billion to RM10 billion. It was not an easy task. But we know what we have and look at the state now. We have the resources and good management which can encourage investors to come to Sabah.

“There may be problems here and there, but we solve them and make it right,” he said.

Giving example such as power distribution, he said a 700 megawatt natural gas plant is being developed to improve electricity supply by 2015.

“They may be delay in improving the power supply as we have rejected coal power plant, but to be fair on Sabah, we know our energy plan and we provide clean electricity,” he said.

On another development, Tan said he viewed the recent incident at the Sabah Oil and Gas Terminal in Kimanis which saw two Koreans seriously injured after they were attacked by workers as a small incident.

“I do not know what actually happened but what I encourage the investors that come to do business in Sabah is to please work well with their local contractors and workers.

“If there is anything they can help the workers, help them because these are the people that will help you protect your investment,” he said.