Conglomerate Cahya Mata Sarawak Bhd (CMS) and global Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto Tuesday (August 7) signed an agreement for the proposed development of an aluminium smelter in Sarawak. [Bernama]
Malaysia doesn’t have rich resource of bauxite (raw mineral for aluminium), we don’t have a large market for aluminium, and our labor cost is no longer the cheapest these days… the only reason for Rio Tinto to invest in Sarawak is because of its demand for high power supply, which the controversial Bakun Dam will be able to provide.
This raise my questions… why do we build the Bakun Dam at the first place? Isn’t Bakun built to supply sufficient energy for Malaysia for the next few decades?
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Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi is happily announcing one mega development project after another… the Iskandar Development Region (IDR), Northern Corridor Economic Region (NCER) and other billion Ringgit projects like Trans-Peninsular Oil Pipeline and all the railway projects etc.
It is easy to come out with a plan, but lots of questions remain uncertain… is it feasible to work on all those mega projects at the same time? Are Malaysians capable of funding the projects ourselves? How are we going to attract foreign investments? Who are going to benefit from the projects? What will happen to the projects if another economic crisis landed on Malaysia like in 1997?
Do we need these projects?
Perak government has spent millions if not billions to develop various industrial areas; most of those areas are close to being wasteland now. It is easy to draw planning and providing infrastructure, but what happen if we could not attract people to invest at those areas? And do we really need all these development?
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