KOTA KINABALU: Sabah will focus attention on producing more value-added wood products to further develop the national economy, a state minister said yesterday.

Minister for Resource Development and Information Technology Datuk Dr Yee Moh Chai said value-added wood products fetched high returns than products under primer processing category.

Until today, he said, Sabah’s wood sector was still making “meaningful contributions” to the country, whether it terms of export revenue or manpower.

The main wood products from the state are plywood, sawn wood and timber, he said.

“However, exports in the form of value-added products, such as furniture, are negligible. That’s why the government is encouraging industry players to focus on producing value-added products,” he said when opening a seminar on education and career prospects in the wood sector.

Last year alone, the country’s wood products exports totalled RM22.76 billion, with furniture and plywood being the main items, each accounting for RM6.72 billion and RM6.27 billion, respectively.

Of the RM22.76 billion, 16 per cent came from exports of wood products from Sabah, Sarawak (33 per cent) and Peninsular Malaysia (51 per cent), he said.

Yee said the United States, Europe, Japan and China are Malaysia’s main markets for wood products.

With 689 sawmills operating in Sabah currently, Yee said: “I believe with so many sawmills in the state, we need a lot of workers.”

— Bernama