Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Public Forum On Outlooks For Sibu - Part 3

The picture shows a section of the audience. Photo: Terrence Tan of MPI


When touching on his planning for retirement as a side note pertinent to the theme of the evening, Tan Kee Hian said Sibu flashed over his mind as an obvious choice. The speaker seemingly was not cracking a light joke to amuse the audience - in act, he succinctly said it all out about Sibu's predicament. Sibu - a retirement town. Well said!

Kee hian then posed to the audience: What does Sibu stand for? This was pretty down-to-earth, but it made everybody scratch his head. Simply put, the speaker called on the audience to identify the strengths of Sibu.

Yes, to critically look at Sibu, we have to know precisely what we have to offer. In other words, don't dwell on and indulge in "sexy" ideas, as Kee Hian pointed out later.

Before coming to Sibu's potentials, the speaker opened the session to the floor to feedback with the challenges facing Sibu.

1. Uncertain employment prospects.

(I agree - uncertainty is the killer.)

2. The previous growth areas have now entered "sunset" industry style.

(One notable industry is timber.)

3. How to achieve sustainable growth in tourism?

4. Sibu has geophysical constraints.

5. The worsening brain drain.

Sibu is really caught in this sort of developmental predicament which drains younger groups away. This is the gist of Sibu dilemma!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think 1-5 are the points that the opposition has been talking about. We would be interested in knowing what is new

Anonymous said...

You want some bad news? Well, when Tan asked the audience 'what does Sibu stands for?", there were quite a few answers from the audience.

But when he posted the same question "what does Malaysia stands for?" to senior civil servant, they really scratch their head with far less answer. Now, that's frightening.
K