00:00I praise the relationship between the government and the state government.
00:05But the question is, Minister,
00:08the efforts that you mentioned earlier through the BC Act, the Carbon Exchange Programme,
00:13is one of the programmes that I think we need to strengthen.
00:19Because the VCM, Voluntary Carbon Markets, that we introduced in 2003,
00:25also needs to be strengthened and enhanced.
00:28How do you see this?
00:31Do we want to be happy forever?
00:34If we want to compare it to the IDX Carbon in Indonesia,
00:37they are a compensatory to the energy production companies,
00:40and Malaysia is willing to turn to the compensatory.
00:43And there are many companies involved in this VCM.
00:46Secondly, you mentioned earlier the carbon mining industry.
00:50And of course, the low pricing of carbon credit is also an issue.
00:56Right now, through the BC Act, we have more or less 3.5 USD per metric tonne
01:03of carbon dioxide equivalents.
01:05If we want to compare it to Singapore, there is a significant difference.
01:10There is a Carbon Pricing Act.
01:12Will we also move towards that?
01:15Lastly, Mr Speaker,
01:17I ask the government to give confidence.
01:21What is the government's effort to ensure that the carbon market mechanism
01:28will be strengthened, especially in the forestry sector?
01:34Thank you.
01:35Honourable Minister.
01:39Thank you, Honourable Speaker.
01:42First of all, we agree that many more things can be done.
01:49One of the things we need to be aware of is that in some countries,
01:53for example in Singapore, they have carbon taxation.
01:59This pushes many companies to look at the carbon market
02:03as an alternative to offset their carbon.
02:08And recently, we had a meeting with my colleague in Thailand.
02:14Thailand also has a Thailand Voluntary Emission Reduction, or TIVA,
02:19which means that if the carbon exchange companies use international resources,
02:26such as VERA,
02:27but TIVA is a domestic standard established in Thailand.
02:32So we have stated our readiness for ASEAN as a whole.
02:37If we can share our experience,
02:39looking at our experience in Singapore and also in Thailand,
02:43as an example,
02:44and also in Indonesia,
02:45which is one of the leading countries,
02:47so that we can do this without waiting for a long time.
02:51For example, the KUAMUT project,
02:53the time it took to get the VERA voucher was quite a long time.
02:57I think from the initiation until it was put into the market this month,
03:02it took about 10 years, or more than 10 years.
03:04So we want to look at those things.
03:06And in our country, the government, through the Ministry of Finance,
03:13discussed with the World Bank to advance,
03:16whether we can see the feasibility of carbon exchange in our country.
03:22So that discussion is underway.
03:25And for us, this is one of the things that we will take into account
03:29in the process of reviving the state climate change RUU that is being done now.
03:33So I believe that if we have that framework,
03:35the price will be better than what we have in the real estate market now,
03:44where the price is quite low.
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