KK WATER THEME PARK LARGEST DUTY FREE

KOTA KINABALU: A water theme park with a floating stage for orchestral performances in the middle, the largest duty-free shop in South East Asia and an adventure park are among future projects to be developed at the Kota Kinabalu Industrial Park (KKIP).

They would be built in the vicinity of the Karambunai resort area where there are lots of sea sports activities.

KKIP Land and Business Development Senior Manager Lawrence Kimkuan said the industrial zones within KKIP have all been fully developed and are ready to be taken up by investors.

So far, KKIP has managed to develop all of its 800 acres allocated for industrial purposes. It has also successfully developed other zones of the park into commercial and residential areas.

"Now, we are going to move into leisure and tourism aspect of the park.

Unfortunately, the State Government has yet to approve our application to develop this zone. But it is coming," said Kimkuan.

The zone in question has actually been gazetted for tourism.

However, KKIP still needs to gain approval from the State Government.

"We assure business owners that we are not going to compete with the existing businesses there with these future projects," said Kimkuan.

Meanwhile, KKIP Deputy Chief Executive Officer Melvin Disimond said KKIP is identifying niche industries that can be further developed.

"For example, from studies conducted recently, Sabah's food industry is the fastest growing in the State. The largest dairy farm in the country is in Sabah.

"Our niche may be in snack food. For instance, there is this snack food called Hari Hari which had already penetrated the market in West Malaysia," said Disimond.

The company that produced the snack recently bought a lot within KKIP since its factory in Kolombong could no longer cater to the space and production demands. "I found that Sabahan entrepreneurs like to be jack-of-all-trades. They want to do everything: agricultural, import-export, trading, contracting.

"But what they need to do is to sustain themselves into one specific industry and master it until they are successful," said Disimond.

He also explained that the State needs lots of logistics facilities and competent distributors if it wants to control prices of goods.

"The media always talks about cabotage policy but actually the key is to get a mainline operator in Sepanggar," said Disimond.

Until February this year, KKIP managed to rope in more than RM2 billion in investment.

More than 6,000 employees work in more than 200 companies within the park. (DE)