00:00Petronas is a very important source of revenue for the government. So, with the development
00:14with Petronas and Petros, are you expecting lower dividends going forward?
00:22I think, first and foremost, the discussion with Petronas and Petros is still ongoing.
00:29The high-level principle that leads to a win-win solution for both has already been agreed.
00:35But, at the end of the day, you still have to translate it to their nitty-gritty, right?
00:39So, let them sort out their nitty-gritty.
00:42So, if there is some sharing of revenue that actually happens along the way, does the country lose?
00:50The answer is no, because if Petronas were to gain some money, they would still spend it
00:56to grow the oil and gas industry, but in the state of Sarawak.
01:00So, from a GDP point of view, the country still gets the money, it's just allocated from a different vehicle.
01:06The second thing is, we also have to recognise Petronas has done well over all the years.
01:10They've built a Fortune 500 company, they've been growing well overseas,
01:15and in that sense, they have resilience in their system.
01:19They may have to do some optimisation to sustain, and I'm sure Tegut Taufik and the leadership team there
01:26will be looking at how to sustain better going forward.
01:30But the country has also progressed compared to the early days.
01:34Actually, our dependency on Petronas has declined over the years.
01:38So, the revenue that we earn from Petronas, at one point, at the worst period,
01:43I think it had hit more than 40% of the total hasil that was coming in from that side.
01:48In 2023, I think it has now declined to about 19-20%.
01:54In the current projection forward, we are going to try to take it down further to 15-16%,
02:02but based on growing other hasils elsewhere.
02:06So then, again, same concept, diversification.
02:10You should never be overly dependent on one, but you break it off.
02:14We can't knock the growth of approved investments, right?
02:19$346.5 billion or something last year was brought in,
02:26and we're really seeing the value of the investments brought in translating into reality.
02:32You don't have to go far, just take the GDP numbers,
02:35and when you take the GDP numbers, you look by segment.
02:39If you look at the segment, the construction sector is up on the fourth quarter 20%.
02:44That's because they've taken the FDI.
02:46The FDI now is translating to construction, because they need to build the data centres,
02:50they need to build the new factories, and so on.
02:52It's happening along the way.
02:54I saw some numbers not too long ago from MITI and Bank Negara,
02:59which actually said that in the past, our conversion rate was about 70%
03:04of all approved investments were converted to reality.
03:07Of late, the number has now increased to 77.7% or something like that.
03:11So that's good.
03:12It's really making sure that what people promise, they translate on the ground,
03:17and when they translate on the ground, activity in the GDP has gone up,
03:21activity to the construction sector has gone up, jobs are created.
03:24This February, we pushed up minimum wage to 1,007.
03:28So that also helps us, because what it does is it creates also a private spending economy.
03:35So the leg of the economy now will have FDI, DDI, and private consumption.
03:41We just need to focus on how do we continue to feed these engines,
03:44so the whole economy will continue to churn well.
03:48Is it going to be perfectly smooth?
03:51Nothing in the world is perfectly smooth.
03:54But if we focus well, we can get more and more done,
03:57we will have the resiliency we need, and if our plans are clear,
04:02and we execute against the plan, we have the ability to re-transform the economy.
04:07I think that's what we're trying to do as a government.
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