Fed Govt Supports Nature Museum For Sabah, Sarawak

Datuk Yong Wui Chung

KUALA LUMPUR: The Federal Government will support both Sabah and Sarawak state governments’ desire to build a Nature Museum in the respective states, particularly in terms of advisory and technical services.

Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture Datuk Mohamaddin bin Ketapi said the proposal to develop a Nature Museum has been forwarded to the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) through his ministry to be included in the Eighth, Ninth, 10th and 11th Malaysia Plan.

However, he said the proposal was not approved due to the government’s financial constraints.

“Nonetheless, the ministry through the Department of Museums Malaysia is ready to build the first national Nature Museum if the allocation for the estimated cost of RM200 million is approved,” he said in response to Senator Datuk Yong Wui Chung’s question on the matter during the Dewan Negara sitting here.

On Yong’s proposal to have the Nature Museum built in Sabah or Sarawak, Mohamaddin said the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture would render its support, particularly in advisory and technical services, should the state governments of Sabah or Sarawak wish to build the museum in the respective states.

On the other hand, Human Resources Minister M. Kulasegaran said the Malaysia Economic Monitor: Brain Drain report published by the World Bank in cooperation with EPU and Talent Corporation (TalentCorp) on April 2011 showed that approximately one million Malaysians were residing abroad, one-third of whom were highly skilled workers.

However, he said the report also acknowledged that the migration was not limited to Malaysia, but also in other countries due to the global war for talent.

He said this in response to Yong’s question on the number of overseas Malaysians who have returned to serve the country in the past 10 months and the latest rate of brain drain.

He said the Returning Expert Programme (REP) managed by TalentCorp aimed to facilitate the return of highly-skilled Malaysian expertise to serve in key sectors in the country.

With several improvement phases, Kulasegaran said the REP has approved more than 5,000 highly-skilled applicants from 2011 to 2018, including 356 applications approved from May to December last year.

“Applications to return to the country through REP has increased by 20 per cent last year compared to previous years.”

He said the top sectors being granted approval under the REP were oil, gas and energy; financial services; business services; communication content and infrastructure; and medicine.

Kulasegaran said the long-term plan to address the rapid development of technology was the introduction of Knowmads, a strategic approach to enable Malaysians abroad to contribute to the nation’s development.

He said the initiative entailed sharing and transfer of knowledge, skills, technology and research; building a network to enable more Malaysian talents abroad to contribute to the country’s development; creating opportunities for joint venture and business investment; providing a platform for sharing of research and suggestions to improve the key economic sectors; and enabling professional consultation services in the respective expertise.

Kulasegaran said the approaches have enabled borderless knowledge transfer, such as the Brain Gain Malaysia (BGM) initiative.

“As such, the government hoped that the REP initiative would attract, nurture and retain highly-skilled Malaysian talents to narrow the skill gap required for the country’s development and at the same time reduce our industries’ dependency on expatriates and foreign workers.”

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