Kuching SMART City Masterplan Ready for Implementation
To make Kuching a liveable and prosperous city by 2025
KUCHING, 29th April, 2021 – The Kuching SMART City Masterplan (KSCMP) was formally presented to YAB Datuk Patinggi Abang Zohari by the Sarawak Multimedia Authority (SMA) after an extensive and rigorous process that involved fourteen government agencies and 1,236 public respondents over a 10-month period. The KSCMP was developed in line with the Sarawak Economic Action Council (SEAC) initiatives and the state’s 12th Malaysia Plan objectives.
The masterplan details out how to make Kuching a liveable and prosperous city for her residents and businesses by the year 2025. To realise this, the five portfolio domains of economy, government, environment, living and digital infrastructure form the basis to formulate strategic initiatives for implementation.
One of the key outcomes the masterplan seeks to achieve is that our city planners are able to measure city competitiveness from accurate unified data. This has the propensity to attract twin cities partnership and generates investment and talent inflow and retention. Invariably, these will lead to value job creation and a vibrant tourism sector. And a safe and environmentally-friendly city with public services at the finger tips 24x7 promote healthy living. Accordingly, an increase in the Well-Being Index for the city means the economic and social needs of the city’s residents are met.
The KSCMP public survey involved 632 respondents for Kuching resident survey and 604 for Kuching business sectors survey. The rigorous process to prioritise 38 initiatives from focus group discussions into a top 15 list involved numerous interviews with stakeholders and officials from EPU, SMA, SSMU, DBKU, MBKS, MPP and MPKS facilitated by Huawei Malaysia and International Data Corporation (IDC) ASEAN.
‘Earlier, the Authority had initiated the Miri SMART City pilot project and together with the eventual implementation of the more comprehensive Kuching SMART City Masterplan, we intend to create a stable, resilient and sustainable operating platform for replication in other towns of Sarawak’, explained Dr Zaidi Bin Razak, General Manager of SMA.
The SMART City sector is one of the eight spelt out in the State Digital Economy 2018-2022 agenda. Contained within this sector are ten strategic actions to drive the success of this sector. The implementation of KSCMP will be a collaboration among SMA, the Sarawak Digital Economic Corporation (SDEC), the relevant government agencies as well as the private sector.