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November 13, 2009 17:47 PM
Pahang Tables Deficit Budget For 12th Straight Year
KUANTAN, Nov 13 (Bernama) -- The Pahang state government on Friday tabled a deficit budget for the 12th consecutive year.
However, Pahang Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Adnan Yaakob said the deficit for the 2010 budget was reduced to RM92.48 million from RM98.61 million in the previous year.
"An amount of RM814,365,760 has been allocated for the 2010 budget, with RM571,871,950 for management expenditure and RM242,493,810 for development cost," Adnan said.
"The 2010 budget is in deficit of RM92,481,950," he said when tabling the budget at the State Legislative Assembly here.
Adnan said that contribution to the state economy continued to come mainly from agricultural activities and the agro-based industry.
"There has been a slight change in the state's economic structure with contribution from the manufacturing sector overtaking the services sector. The manufacturing sector has moved up to second place from third place previously," he said.
"This showed that the state economy has started moving towards value-added activities."
Adnan said the state's per capita income was RM6,648 in 2005 and this is expected to rise to RM8,245 in 2010 with the increase of activities in the manufacturing and services sectors.
He said the strategy under the 2010 budget was to increase revenue through venturing into new areas which could bring in additional income such as water royalty and mining.
Adnan also said that the state government would continue to be prudent in spending without sacrificing the quality of its services to the people.
"Expenditure that are considered luxury and giving a less positive impact on the state would not be given priority in the 2010 budget," he said.
In tabling the budget, Adnan said he would like to correct a perception that the state still has plenty of land.
"A substantial portion of the state land, about 3.6 million hectares, have been marked as reserves for national park, wildlife, water catchment areas, and river and lake," he said.
Adnan said the state government was working towards preserving the forest, with the gazetting of forest as water catchment areas in line with the policy of the federal government.
He said that currently, 972,839 hectares of forest had been gazetted as water catchment areas where logging activities were prohibited, adding that the commercial value of the forest concerned could have brought in a revenue of over RM28.1 billion for the state government.
In view of the sacrifice made in gazetting the forest, Adnan said the state government had requested the federal government to provide RM280 million annually and this was being considered.
"We hope for a favourable response to our request," he said.
-- BERNAMA
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