'Energy sector may drive economic growth'

KUALA LUMPUR: JFPS Group, a business performance
enhancement company, expects the energy sector to continue driving the country's economic growth.

Group Managing Director Jocelyn Ng said from 2009-2011, the energy sector had contributed an average of 20 per cent annually to Malaysia's gross domestic product (GDP).

"Energy is an important factor in the country's economic growth and its contribution to the gross national income (GNI) is expected to rise from RM110 billion in 2009 to RM241 billion in 2020," she said in her welcoming speech at the launch of the Power Plant Operations and Maintenance 2012 Conference here today.

She said the government had set a target of five per cent annual growth in the Oil, Gas and Energy (OGE) sector under the National Key Economic Area (NKEA) from 2010-2020.

"I personally have no doubt that Malaysia is one of the most important hubs for energy services regionally," she added.

Meanwhile, Minister of Energy, Green Technology and Water, Datuk Seri Peter Chin Fah Kui said in his keynote adddress at the conference, that although a small country, Malaysia has big plans to increase the generation of electricity from renewable energy sources.

"We want to achieve about 985 Megawatt (MW)or about six per cent of the total electricity generation capacity by 2015 and about 2,080 MW, equivalent to about 11 per cent of the generation share, by 2020," he added.

He expressed confidence that this goal could be achieved following the introduction of the Feed-in Tariff (FiT) mechanism.

Chin also said that power plants in Peninsular Malaysia are currently among the best maintained and operated.

"For example, some power plants are currently operating at an Unscheduled Outage Rate (UOR) of below four per cent, which is well within the world class standards," he added.

He said that the government recently increased the threshold for
foreign equity holdings in power generation projects to 49 per cent.

The text of his speech was read by the Ministry's Deputy Secretary General (Energy Sector), Badarudin Mahyudin. - Bernama