Sarawak’s business events performance in the fiscal year of 2022 was nothing short of remarkable as the destination’s industry led by Business Events Sarawak surpassed targets on both economic and legacy impact returns. This was announced at BESarawak’s 17th Annual General Meeting on June 28.

In FY2022, the State Convention Fund was revised to the Sarawak Business Events Fund to accommodate all types of business events, enabling Sarawak to secure 100 business events with a projected total economic impact of RM325.3 million, including a direct delegate expenditure of RM177.3 million and tax revenue of RM19.6 million.

Ensuring that the local community benefit from these events, an additional 25,896 jobs are expected. The secured events target exceeded 111 percent while other economic returns exceeded 196 percent.

Face-to-face meetings are back in full swing, and Sarawak hosted 100 business events in the same year fetching RM230.3 million in total economic impact. Direct delegate expenditures injected another RM125.1 million into the economy while 18,275 short- and long-term jobs were created within the last 12 months.

Sarawak also achieved remarkable success in international bidding, securing 100 percent victory in all bids with a projected total economic impact of RM179.4 million and over 14,000 job opportunities on the horizon — making FY2022 the most successful bidding year in the last two years.

FY2022 marked the business events industry’s third year in executing the Post Covid-19 Development Strategy (PCDS) 2030. One of the industry’s objectives is to align the PCDS 2030 on securing sustainable, legacy-driven business events from the six priority economic sectors namely manufacturing, agriculture, tourism, forestry, mining and services; and seven enabler sectors such as digital transformation, innovation, education and human capital, basic infrastructure, utilities, transport and renewable energy.

“We stayed on track in securing events of key interests aligned with the Sarawak Government’s objectives of stimulating economic and social growth, while growing our core business, optimising costs and opportunities and strengthening Sarawak’s stakeholder collaborations and talent pool to boost industry competence,” stated BESarawak’s chairman, Dato Sri Abang Haji Abdul Karim bin Tun Datuk Abang Haji Openg.

“Through business events, Sarawak is laying the foundation for sustainable development with the intention of leaving a transformative impact on local communities for years to come,” continued BESarawak’s chaiman.

Sarawak is becoming widely recognised worldwide as a legacy impact destination. In FY2022 Sarawak’s legacy performance recorded an 82 percent success rate with 91 out of 100 secured events. A total of 485 impacts were identified with the highest on the services, tourism, agriculture, education and human capital, innovation as well as, digital transformation sectors.

In terms of hosted events, all 100 business events were marked as legacy driven, achieving a 100 percent success rate and a total of 553 impacts were recorded.

Between 2006 and 2022, Sarawak hosted 1,082 business events with a total economic impact of RM3.23 billion providing more than 258,000 job opportunities to the local communities.