Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud has called on chambers of commerce, business associations and guilds to come up with new ideas and work together closely with the country's economic planners in the quest to make Malaysia a high-income nation.

"All must engage with government institutions in order to be able to make the move forward," he said when officiating at the 20th anniversary celebration of the Federation of the Sarawak Chiang Chuan Associations in Sibu last night.

Abdul Taib said the government had many schemes to assist the people, in terms of finance and training, to cope with the many challenges the country might face along the way to becoming a high-income nation.

"Our challenges will be in switching over to high management, high finance, high-performing businesses and the era of giant companies," he said.

He said there were the many universities, institutes of management and various training programmes for them which the government would expand upon.

Futile to organise demos

Abdul Taib also said that it was futile for anyone to think they could get the best out of the government by applying pressure and organising anti-government demonstrations.

"If you choose to quarrel with the government or with your leaders, you can get cut off and will never be able to use to the fullest all the preparations and the plans we have to move the country forward economically," he said.

Emphasising the need for the people to continue to rally strongly behind the government, he said the government would fail to function properly unless it had a big majority (of electoral seats).

"If you have a weak government or a government of inexperienced people, everyone will feel unsafe.

"It is very important that all will be part of this majority and part of the working government. We can achieve this if we can unite, co-operate, agree with and understand each other very well," he said.

- Bernama