Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hasan

KUCHING: Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hasan declined to express his expectations for the national Budget 2018 to be tabled next month.

Approached by journalists after attending a function here Friday, he said he would rather wait for Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak to table the budget, which is expected on Oct 27.

“Wait lah, (it’s) not yet (tabled),” he said after receiving a courtesy call from Liang Jianyong, secretary-general of  China Provincial Committee (CPC) Fujian Provincial Committee here.

Awang Tengah, also Minister of Industrial and Entrepreneur Development, said Sarawak had been getting investments mostly from China these past few years.

He added that other countries such as Japan and South Korea had also invested in the state, but China topped the chart given its One-Belt One-Road Initiative.

According to him, the latest major investment from China is a steel project worth about US$3 billion (over RM12 billion).

“Steel is one of industries that China is investing in Sarawak, of course there are others. This steel project is one of the biggest investments in Samalaju Industrial Park,” he added.

To a question, Awang Tengah said the Chinese company (Hebei Xinwuan Steel Group) is already working on formalising the collaboration with the state.

During the courtesy call earlier, he said he hoped that both Sarawak and Fujian could continue to enhance their trade and investment relationship and explore further on air connectivity between the two regions.

“We can also identify cornerstone companies to collaborate and invest in selected industries such as high-tech electronics, energy-intensive, agriculture, halal and food processing, shipbuilding, biomass and real estate development in Sarawak apart from government-to-government bilateral relationships,” he added.