KUCHING: Twenty-four major projects including a second aluminium smelter plant are being planned for the next five years in the Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE), attracting about RM80 billion worth of investment.

Chief Minister Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud said that once implemented, these projects would provide more than 20,000 jobs, which exclude those involved in construction work.

“We have a bird’s eye view on what the next five years is holding for Sarawak and we are happy to see here the interest shown, with the 24 major projects, mainly big ones, at this stage, involving RM80 billion worth of investment,” he told a press conference after chairing the first Regional Corridor Development Authority (Recoda) Board meeting at Wisma Bapa Malaysia here yesterday.

He said the biggest investment would be the production of aluminium and poly-silicon while the other projects were still in various stages of development.

He said the second aluminium smelter in Mukah, undertaken by Press Metal Berhad, would be up and ready by August and that this smelter would have an initial production capacity of about 50,000 tonnes per year.

He said the production capacity of the smelter would eventually increase to 100,000 tonnes per year.

Sarawak’s first aluminium smelter plant is in Bintulu and is owned by Sarawak Aluminium Company (Salco) which is a joint venture company between Rio Tinto Alcan and Cahya Mata Sarawak Bhd.

The smelter, which will create up to 4,700 jobs, is set to play a significant role as a catalyst for growth under the SCORE.

Aside from this, Taib said, the state’s halal-hub had also started off well and so far RM400 million had already started flowing in, out of the RM2 billion which was to be invested in the hub the next five years. He said this investment would include the setting up of a laboratory for scientific work for the quality control of the hub’s products.

Taib, who is also Recoda chairman, said that although yesterday marked the first board meeting, preparation work had been going on for the last two years and Recoda had spent slightly more than RM1 billion worth of provisions.

The spending was on infrastructure and all its preparations, planning for manpower, preparing for the Mukah Airport and on planning and implementation of various road projects, he said.

Earlier on, he said the state had started the construction of the Murum dam and its roads and that the designs of the roads to Murum, Baram and other smaller roads in the SCORE area had been taken.

He said Recoda hoped that it would be able to get the tender out for these roads within the Ninth Malaysia Plan.

Meanwhile, he said that the standard procedure of approval of projects in SCORE would be the same as had been done by the state government all along. Also present were Second Planning and Resource Management Minister Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hassan and State Secretary Datuk Amar Wilson Baya Dandot.