KOTA KINABALU, Oct 19 (Bernama) — Sabah offers immense investment opportunities in the blue economy, said Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor.
He said the Sabah blue economy’s estimated potential annual yield of fish and prawns is more than 491,000 tonnes with a value of RM3.25 billion.
“Currently we’re tapping less than 50 per cent of this, even with more than 3,000 fishing vessels out there. Most of them stay within 30 nautical miles from the coast. Now only seven vessels go out to the deep-sea areas. This is an opportunity for industrial fishermen to set up more processing facilities for deep-sea harvests.
“The autonomy given to Sabah to approve and issue licences for maritime activities like deep-sea fishing, is a boon to the state in our bid to develop our blue economy,” he said at the Sabah International Blue Economy Conference (SIBEC) 2024 here today.
The two-day conference starting today was officiated by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
Hajiji said that besides deep-sea fishing, there are 14 other components of the blue economy that can be explored, including renewable ocean energy, blue carbon, tourism, maritime transport and marine biotechnology.
He added that there is also the exciting possibility of harvesting energy through the oceans.
Early this year, Sabah passed the Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) Act which enables the Energy Commission of Sabah to explore ocean thermal energy conversion as a renewable energy source.
“The OTEC technology uses the temperature difference between the warm surface of the ocean and the cold deep waters to generate electricity without requiring fuel. It has a low environmental impact and can produce clean water for drinking and agriculture, as well as reliable energy for the coastal communities.
“Sabah has a coastline of over 1,700 kilometres and 75 per cent of ocean thermal energy reserves is in Malaysia. Studies had shown Sabah could produce a total of 20,000 MW,” he said.
Hajiji said the Sabah government is looking to collaborate with investors to harvest the energy.
“This could solve many of our power issues and we might even be able to supply electricity to our neighbours, like Indonesia, due to the proximity of our OTEC basins to Kalimantan,” he said.
Hajiji is confident that SIBEC 2024 will be the catalyst for advancing the state’s blue economy, a platform for interacting with global knowledge in this field, attracting local and international investors and industry players.
