I have travelled far and wide and now currently staying for work in Kinabatangan, Lahad Datu.
But this post has been very long overdue and I need to get this posted quick or else I will never get this off my chest.
Prior before my transfer to my new workplace, I have enjoyed a long holiday and have taken a road trip along the northwest of Sabah.
Car rentals in Kota Kinabalu can range from Rm60-Rm100 per day for Perodua Viva depending on the operator that u seek. In my case, I have gotten the special price of RM60 since I have my friend who is running the car rental service. How can I forget that he put me in charge of his cars when he was away on holiday?
Ahem, that story aside, one of the main reason that I wanted to visit Sipitang is due to the requests of my old hometown friends to survey the small town. I am also interested to tap into the unknown market of the Sipitang.
So, here are my hands-on experience from exploring my target destination. I took the liberty to interview as much people as I can from different backgrounds. There is nothing more insightful from learning it first hand if compared to internet readings.
Distance from KK to Sipitang :
around 3 hour drive which includes a rest stop at Beufort.
Population
Totalling around 30k residents, they consists of:
Majority Kedayan residents followed by Murut and Brunei Malays.
Food and small stalls are operated by Bugis
Labourers are mostly Filipinos migrants
whereas Chinese operates medicine shops, hardwares and one Mamak restaurant by Indian Muslim.
Town size
I covered the whole town in around 15 minutes on foot while taking photos and notes. I found that Sipitang is kinda like a rest stop for express buses and lorry freighters crossing the border between Sarawak-Brunei-Sabah. However, very few of them actually stop by for resting or unloading. This is mainly due to the single lane which forms the backbone of the town. Very reminiscent of Tatau in Sarawak, only that Sipitang is slightly, I repeat, slightly bigger than Tatau. The only fast food restaurant is KFC and one supermarket in the town. That is all.
Economic Potential:
Trading will be challenging if we are talking about 30k population. But there is opportunity for hardware related supply to Petronas project site. Even then, local hardwares have already sliced the pie among themselves. Hopefully there is still some portions left. Crumbs even? With the monthly rental ranging from Rm2k-RM4k per shoplot, surely a hardware shop need to generate more than RM5k to break even.
As accurate as of February 2014, I have yet to see any major housing or shoplot construction even on the outskirts of the town.
My opinion
Where other people sees obstacle, I demand solution. For me, setting up a hardware shop blindly is too risky if we do not secure a client. We need more experience in this and I am glad that my current job also exposes me to contractors and hardware suppliers. They are sharing their knowledge whenever I get the chance.
