Thursday, November 08, 2012

Market Heart of Borneo as an investment package


KOTA KINABALU: The high-level consultation meeting on the Heart of Borneo (HoB) initiative yesterday opined that HoB should be marketed as an investment package.

The consultation team felt that the financial interest in HoB could be packaged, sold and marketed as an investment package, said Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Masidi Manjun when presenting the findings from the meeting at the HoB+5 and Beyond: ‘Shaping and Nurturing Sabah’s Future Together’ at Magellan Sutera Resort here.

“All this while we have been seeing it as an environment sense of field. What the discussion felt was that there was a very viable financial package which can be packaged together for investors to look into,” he said.

Other opinions generated from the meeting included urging the federal government and more specifically, the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry where Tan Sri Datuk Seri Panglima Joseph Kurup is deputy minister, to become more proactive in the HoB initiative and not merely in the giving of financial support to the initiative.

“This is a national effort on the part of Malaysia, not just from Sabah, and I believe Sabah is still in Malaysia. So we need to make sure that the federal government is with us.

“I know in the discussion I asked for more funding but that is just part of it. Eventually, what matters is not just a symbolic support in terms of financial allocation but also the eagerness and enthusiasm on the part of the federal government to make sure that this succeeds and that can be in many forms,” he said.

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