Covid-19 yet to impact Sarawak economy - Abang Johari

CORONAVIRUS | The Covid-19 outbreak has yet to impact Sarawak’s economy, said Chief Minister Abang Johari Openg.

Abang Johari (photo) said unlike in Peninsular Malaysia where the services sector, which involves tourism, has been affected owing to its major contribution to the economy, the situation in Sarawak is different as the sector’s contribution to the state’s gross domestic product (GDP) is not huge.

“Sarawak is not depending too much on the services sector to generate its economy even in tourism, because our Chinese arrivals are not much.

“Ours are domestic arrivals such as (from) Brunei and Kalimantan, Indonesia,” he told reporters after launching the Sarawak Travel App and Web Portal in Kuching today.

Abang Johari said the state government had injected a substantial amount of fund for infrastructure development which would help sustain the growth of between five and six percent this year.

“This problem (Covid-19 outbreak) is only effecting us a bit because our economy is structured in such a way that we are not depending too much on the services sector,” he said.

Earlier in his speech, Abang Johari said all sectors in Sarawak’s economy should be digitalised, with all the data converged and utilised for the growth of local products.

The launch of the Sarawak Travel App and Web Portal was in conjunction with the Visit Malaysia 2020 and Visit Sarawak campaign.

- Bernama