Sarawak is blessed with an abundance of natural resources. LNG and petroleum have provided the mainstay of the state's economy for decades. Sarawak is also one of the world's largest exporters of tropical hardwood timber. However, the state government has imposed strict log-production quotas over recent years to ensure sustainable forestry management. Sarawak still, however, produces approximately 9 to 10 million cubic metres of logs annually.
With such vast land expanse, Sarawak has large tracts of land suitable for commercial agricultural development. Approximately 32% or about 40,000 km² of the state's total land area has been identified as suitable agricultural land. Nevertheless, less than 9% of this is planted with productive permanent crops, while the balance is still under shifting cultivation for hill padi (rice) which is estimated at more than 16,000 km². The main commercial crops are oil palm, which has been increasing steadily over the years, sago, and pepper.
Since the 1980s, Sarawak has started to diversify and transform its economy into a more industrialized one. This endeavour has been seeing continuing success, with manufacturing and high-tech industries now playing a significant role in shaping the economic expansion of the state.
The global economic environment is expected to remain robust and dynamic right up to the next decade, with both the industrial and developing countries anticipated to maintain sustainable output growth. Global trade is predicted to expand by about 8%. This continuing favourable external outlook should keep the high growth momentum of the state's economy at a steady and stable level.
As the largest state in the Federation of Malaysia, Sarawak aims to be a fully developed state along with the rest of the country by 2020. Sarawak has identified four sectors as key sources of growth:
manufacturing
commercial agriculture
construction
services sectors
The availability of vast competitively-priced land and rich reserves of natural resources has made Sarawak an attractive choice for manufacturing operations among investors.
Resource from: http://wikipedia.org/