Commenting on Chief Minister Shafie Apdal’s remarks about the state’s potential in agriculture, Firdausi Suffian of Sabah UiTM said: “We need a clear and coherent industrial policy, which is what the chief minister has always talked about, but which I have yet to see coming from the state.”

In a recent interview, Shafie envisioned Sabah and Sarawak as together being an economic hub, saying Sabah could play a big role in this by exploiting its potential in agriculture.

Firdausi acknowledged the existence of the Sabah Agriculture Blueprint for economic diversification in the sector, but said it could go nowhere without an industrial policy to complement it.

“Sabah is the second biggest contributor in agriculture after Sarawak to the nation’s GDP, but we export only raw materials. There is no downstreaming in that area.

“Singapore, which lacks the land for mass agriculture, is still ranked number one in terms of food security in Asean. But for Sabah, food is the second highest import.

“To turn Sabah into an economic hub, the state government must set the path to where we want to go.”

Firdausi said government-linked companies (GLCs) in Sabah needed to work closely with the private sector to initiate strategic plans. For this to happen, the GLCs should be headed by technocrats instead of political appointees.

“Even though some appointees have the qualifications, they can’t divorce themselves from political interest,” he said.

Another economist, Carmelo Ferlito of the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS), said the state government should ask itself why it had not been able to turn Sabah into an important international player in agriculture despite its extensive land resources.

“What has stopped international players from setting up big-scale operations in Sabah?” he asked.

“To wish to have an agriculture hub and to make it possible are two different stories. We should investigate those points to see how to develop a market-driven approach that could boost agriculture entrepreneurship in Borneo.”

Ferlito warned that Sabah’s ambitions would be derailed if there was no proper planning.

“International trade is based on competitive advantages,” he said.

“Look at Indonesia. In an attempt to develop a local corn industry with high duties on imported corn, it ended up making the local corn price much higher than international prices.

“This means industries that heavily rely on corn as a raw material, such as poultry production, are less competitive and have to enter the market with higher prices.”

Ferlito also spoke of potentials in intra-Asean trade.

He said Southeast Asia was well placed to increase the significance of its role in the global economy because the effects of Covid-19 are milder in the region than in other parts of the world.

He called for the exploitation of opportunities coming from disruptions in the supply and value chains and, in particular, from the growing distrust towards China.

“Imagine how big the impact would be of reopening intra-Asean borders,” he said.

“However, we have seen growing nationalistic tendencies, with some countries like Thailand using autarkic jargon.”

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