Economy of Sarawak

Sarawak is blessed with an abundance of natural resources. LNG and petroleum have provided the mainstay of the state's economy for decades. Sarawak is also one of the world's largest exporters of tropical hardwood timber and is the major contributor to Malaysian exports. This has led to wide scale deforestation of Sarawak's rainforest. The last UN statistics estimated Sarawak's sawlog exports at an average of 14109000 m³ between 1996 and 2000.

With such vast land expanse, Sarawak has large tracts of land suitable for commercial agricultural development. Approximately 32% or about 40,000 km² of the state's total land area has been identified as suitable agricultural land. Nevertheless, less than 9% of this is planted with productive permanent crops, while the balance is still under shifting cultivation for hill paddy (rice) which is estimated at more than 16,000 km². The main commercial crops are oil palm, which has been increasing steadily over the years, sago, and pepper.

Since the 1980s, Sarawak has started to diversify and transform its economy into a more industrialized one. This endeavor has been seeing continuing success, with manufacturing and high-tech industries now playing a significant role in shaping the economic expansion of the state.

The global economic environment is expected to remain robust and dynamic right up to the next decade, with both the industrial and developing countries anticipated to maintain sustainable output growth. Global trade is predicted to expand by about 8%. This continuing favorable external outlook should keep the high growth momentum of the state's economy at a steady and stable level.

As the largest state in the Federation of Malaysia, Sarawak aims to be a fully developed state along with the rest of the country by 2020. Sarawak has identified four sectors as key sources of growth:

• Manufacturing
• Commercial
• Agriculture
• Construction
• Services sectors

The availability of vast competitively-priced land and rich reserves of natural resources has made Sarawak an attractive choice for manufacturing operations among investors.

Agriculture, Logging Industry and Land Usage in Sarawak

Sarawak's rainforests have been gradually depleted by the demand driven by the logging industry and the following introduction of palm oil plantations. Many of Sarawak's rural communities have felt changes affected by the economic activity of these industries. Peaceful protests and timber blockades between native communities and logging companies are common, often resulting in preventive police action.

The Penan, Borneo's nomadic hunter gatherers have been most affected by these changes, complaining of illness through polluted rivers, game depletion resulting in widespread hunger and loss of traditional medicines and forest products. Their resistance to logging companies culminated in a series of protests and timber blockades in the 1990s, of which many were dismantled by the Police, within the remit of the Law. The Penan claim that their rights are not respected by the State nor by logging companies. Another example, the native customary rights court case of Rumah Nor in the Kemena Basin gave rural communities engaged in subsistence farming hope for continued communal use of land reserves. Although the Court of Appeal ruled against Rumah Nor on the grounds that they had not produced sufficient evidence for their claim, it nevertheless upheld the principles stated by the lower court.

These principles are the basis of not only Rumah Nor's claim, but of the claims of all Sarawak's native communities, namely:

(i) that native customary rights are NOT created by legislation, although they can be extinguished by legislation, on condition of adequate compensation.

(ii) that these communities have a territory including forest reserves and rivers, and farmland, including land under fallow.

Thus, although the Court of Appeal ruled against Rumah Nor's specific claims, it upheld the lower court's ruling in favour of Rumah Nor with regard to the general principles. In this sense, it represents a significant blow to the state's claims that native customary rights comprise only those rights recognised by the state through its legislation.

Sarawak Geography

Having land area of 124,450 km² spreading between latitude 0° 50′ and 5°N and longitude 109° 36′ and 115° 40′ E, it makes up 37.5% of the land of Malaysia. Sarawak also contains large tracts of tropical rain forest home to an abundance of plant and animal species.

Sarawak is currently divided into eleven Administrative Divisions: Kuching Division, Samarahan Division, Sri Aman Division, Betong Division, Sarikei Division, Sibu Division, Mukah Division, Kapit Division, Bintulu Division, Miri Division and Limbang Division.

The country stretches for some 750 km along the north east coastline of Borneo interrupted in the north by about 150 km of Brunei coast (not adding the coastline along the bays). Sarawak is separated from the Indonesian part of Borneo, Kalimantan, by ranges of high hills and mountains that are part of the central mountain range of Borneo. These get higher to the north and culminate near the source of the Baram River with the steep Mount Batu Lawi, Mount Mulu in the Park of the same name and Mount Murud with the highest peak in Sarawak.

The most important rivers are from the south to the north the Sarawak River, the Lupar River, the Saribas River, the Rajang River with 563 km the longest river in Malaysia with the Baleh River branch, the Baram River, the Limbang River that drains into the Brunei Bay as it divides the two parts of Brunei and the Trusan River that also flows into the Brunei Bay.

Sarawak can be divided into three natural regions. The coastal region is rather low lying flat country with large extents of swamps and other wet environments. The hill region provides most of the easily inhabited land. Most of the larger cities and towns have been built in this region. As the swamps make up much of the coast, the ports of Kuching and Sibu have been built some distance from the coast on rivers, while Bintulu and Miri are close to the coast at the only places that the hills stretch right to the China Sea. The third region is the mountain region along the border and with the Kelabit and Murut highlands in the north.