With Adenan Satem’s appointment as Sarawak’s new chief minister, DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng has been quick to urge him to resolve three issues affecting the state.

They are: getting higher oil and gas royalties, abolishing the cabotage policy, and poverty eradication.

“If Adenan can resolve these three major issues for Sarawak, his era will be a more significant one than the longest serving Chief Minister in Malaysian history,” he said in a statement today, referring to Adenan’s predecessor Abdul Taib Mahmud.

Lim, who is also the Penang Chief Minister, said oil and gas royalties of 20 percent instead of the current five percent will help Sarawak pull  its infrastructure to level with that of  peninsular Malaysia.

In addition, he said the abolition of the cabotage policy would ensure that prices of goods in Sabah and Sarawak are the same as those in peninsula Malaysia.

The cabotage policy requires that domestic shipping be done only by Malaysian vessels since the 1980s. This has been blamed for contributing to higher cost of goods in East Malaysia.

“It is grossly unjust and downright economically discriminatory that one year has elapsed since March 5th 2013 and yet Sarawakians are still paying more for the same good or services than those from the peninsular Malaysian states.

“Sadly the promise in the 2013 Barisan Nasional manifesto of 'One Malaysia, One Price' remains an empty promise,” Lim said.

He also noted that Sarawak has the second highest GDP per capita in the country at RM33,000, but despite this, it is the third poorest state in Malaysia and has the second highest number of workers without formal education.

“Together with those who only have primary education, they make up 35.4 percent of the national workforce who are considered functionally illiterate as classified by the World Bank,” he said.