KOTA KINABALU:
Domestic market for agricultural products will be further strengthened to ensure the agriculture sector continue to grow as planned, said Chief Minister Datuk Sen Musa Aman. He said focus will be given to promoting local products that are high in quality and competitively priced to enable them to compete with imported products. For this purpose, he said both the public and private sectors would be encouraged to provide marketing infrastructures and to efficiently manage their daily operations. Construction of marketing infrastructures such as collection centres, warehouses, cold storage facilities, wholesale markets and Pasar Tani would be expedited, Musa said in a speech at the signing of a MoU between FAMA and KKIP yesterday for the purchase of land to build a RM5 million marketing complex of FAMA. His speech was read by Agriculture and Food Industry Minister Datuk Abdul Rahim Ismail. He said the State Government fully supports FAMA in its effort to further stimulate the agriculture and food industry in Sabah by setting up a marketing complex in KKIP. He said FAMA’s move reflects the increasing awareness and understanding among the industry players of the objective and importance of the establishment of Kota Kinabalu Industrial Park (KKIP). “This would ultimately help the government in realising the Sabah’s Halatuju which recognizes agriculture as one of the three main sectors that will be developed to strengthen the State’s economy. More importantly, the agriculture sector would also be the leading sector under the Sabah Development Corridor (SDC),” he said. With the completion of the proposed complex, Musa said it is hoped that FAMA would further strengthen its role and efforts towards affectively coordinating the marketing activities for agriculture and agro-based products in the State. At the same time, he said FAMA should continue establishing distribution centres in districts with high potential to further improve marketing mechanism and provide supporting facilities for value-adding activities.
