Awang Tengah (ninth left, back row), Naroden (seventh left, back row) and others giving the thumbs-up to the roaring success of the state-level One District, One Industry road show in Lawas.


LAWAS: The state-level One District, One Industry roadshow here from Oct 12 to 15 was a roaring success, recording sales of almost RM0.9 million.

The actual sales of RM0.897 million mostly came from the popular Lawas Kitchen and stalls put up by small and medium scale entrepreneurs from Sabah, Terengganu and Negri Sembilan apart from local Sarawakians.

Three entrepreneurs promoting Shaza Kelulut honey, health and beauty products secured contracts to supply their goods to customers in Brunei during the road show officiated by Deputy Chief Minister and Minister of Industrial and Entrepreneur Development Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hasan.

Sri Aman Division topped the chart in sales, followed by Kuching and Mukah in second and third places respectively.

Assistant Minister of Entrepreneur Development and Small and Medium Industries Datuk Mohd Naroden Majais was happy with the good response to the road show.

“The amount of sales was beyond our expectations. This is due to the commitment and cooperation of all quarters involved,” he said.

On a separate matter, Naroden mentioned that Lawas and Limbang districts had great potential in producing Nipah sugar which has a huge demand overseas due to the ample raw materials in the two districts.

Locally known as ‘Gula Apong’, he hoped local entrepreneurs would tap into the opportunity of marketing the brownish sugar in the local market or globally through e-commerce.

“Alibaba.com has this product on sale but it is on small scale and the seller could not meet the big request from one interested buyer in Japan,” he said.

During a recent trade mission to Australia, a company was interested to buy two containers of Nipah sugar per month but the volume was beyond the capacity of any supplier in the state presently. Thus, he is looking forward to the state government and Unimas to carry out a study on optimum and cost-efficient production of this organic product for export.

An initial batch of 12 persons from Lawas district who have undergone a nipah sugar processing course in Pusa are ready to start the business on a small scale.

“There is money in the trees and the sugar can be collected in plastic bags instead of the traditional way using bamboo containers, and each cut palm could produce up to 40 days,” he said.

Currently, only Samarahan and Betong are producing nipah sugar in the state and most are produced using traditional method of harvesting and processing.