Kota Baharu, Oct 24 -Projects and programmes by the Federal government in the East Coast Economic Region (ECER) have attracted private investment worth RM6.5 billion to Kelantan in the five-year period after 2007.
ECER Development Council (ECERDC) Chief Executive Officer Datuk Jebasingam Issace John said ECER has also created 5,000 new jobs and nearly 1,000 business opportunities for entrepreneurs in the state.
The projects include the Halal Park in Pasir Mas; the Collection, Processing and Packaging Centre in Pengkalan Kubor, Tumpat; the Integrated Fisheries Park in Tok Bali, Pasir Puteh; and the South Kelantan Agropolitan project in Gua Musang.
Speaking to reporters at a media briefing here today, he said under the Ninth and 10th Malaysia Plans, the federal government allocated RM630 million through ECERDC for infrastructure development, agriculture, manufacturing, tourism and human capital development in Kelantan.
In the agropolitan project in South Kelantan, implemented since 2009, some 300 participants and their families live in houses provided by ECERDC, and their average monthly income has risen from RM350 to over RM1,000 now, he said.
The participants work in oil palm estates and grow cocoa in their backyard to supplement their income.
Phase 1 of the Halal Park, covering 54 hectares, is completed and a business complex for halal products entrepreneurs was opened in June this year, he said.
“ECERDC is also in discussions with five potential investors on building a factory in the park,” he said.
The fisheries park in Tok Bali will also be promoted as a marine eco-tourism
destination, while the centre in Pengkalan Kubor has annual production capacity
of 328,000 litres of fish sauce and budu (fermented fish sauce), he said.
Some 3,140 students and 1,800 adults in the state have also benefited from ECER’s Empower initiative (which focuses on academic skills training for students and skills and entrepreneurship training for adults), he added.
-Bernama
