By Sobrina Rosli

Singapore - The Brunei Forum yesterday kicked off with sessions for prospect investors to get to know more about the sultanate as a destination for businesses looking for strategic location and wealth of human resources.

The forum, held in the sultanate's city-state neighbour, is meant to inspire a renewed interest among investors in the strengths of Brunei as a site for future projects, said Dato Timothy Ong, acting chairman of the Brunei Economic Development Board.

For more than 50 years, Brunei has gone through three major investment waves, he said.

The first wave was in 1929 when Shell and the Brunei government collaborated, the second was in 1973 when Brunei collaborated with partners to produce liquefied natural gas.

The third is the current effort leveraging on other areas away from oil and gas, such as eco-tourism.

"We want to leverage on other sectors, leverage on Brunei's strategic location and the wealth of our human resources," he said.

An open discussion was held, allowing Singapore's business figures to voice out their concerns about locating projects in Brunei.

Among them was a representative from Lovells Lee and Lee who raised the issue of bureaucracy and red tape.

Dato Timothy stressed that relevant authorities should use studies, such as the Ease of Doing Business, as a benchmark to improve on such areas of concern. Brunei was ranked 78th out of 178 countries.

Brunei cannot progress in a competitive way if it reacts to such concerns in a defensive manner, he said.

A representative from Grover Technologies asked of proper regulatory frameworks to boost confidence levels of investors.

Brunei observes the rule of law, Dato Timothy said, adding that any contracts are honoured.

In the afternoon session, Dato Paduka Hamdillah Abdul Wahab, Deputy Minister of Industry and Primary Resources, delivered a talk on the importance of the sultanate's participation in the Heart of Borneo initiative.

Highlighting the need for Brunei to find its own niche areas to grow, such as ecotourism, the deputy minister said:

"For tourism to become a major income earner and job generator, it is important that Brunei and the island differentiate itself from the regional tourism powerhouses like Singapore, West Malaysia and Thailand."-- Courtesy of The Brunei Times