My HomeTown's Hit By Double "Whammy(s)"

I was born in an island of Borneo. Now, it's called Sabah. My little small hometown is Sandakan, located at the east coast of North Borneo. Normally, noone knows about this place. It's quite remote from the rest of the big cities in Malaysia. Recently, the small city has been named as the Nature('s) City. Part of the process of naming is just another way of marketing strategy for touristic purposes. Let's forget about the name or the marketing strategy of my hometown development.

Personally, i think my hometown is hit by double whammys. First, the oil price has gone down tremendously and second, the world market is still gloomy. We might always think that small towns will have less economic impact with regards of the financial and economic downfall. If you think that way, I am sorry to tell you that this is not the case. A whopping drop in oil price has created a downward syndrome of oil speculation in the market, which results in palm oil price to be affected badly. Not only the oil price decreased but also the share market was in crisis. Speculations and over speculations create massive uncertainties in the market, which also result in the lost hope of consumer markets and investments.

My hometown, highly dependent on palm oil and timber industry, is going to face another downfall of business retraction. There are several projects of commercial zones of shop lots to be filled. Now, it will face problems of selling those shop units. Business in my hometown is nothing but a circle of people doing the same old thing or transferring from places to places. Without any influx of outside investment or external influences to the small town, the town will only slowly take time to expand. Sometimes, business will slowly lose out as well to other more experienced investors coming in. However, in the case of my hometown, the chances of investors coming in are less. The population is tremendously low. The economic expansion is slow. The technology and infrastructure are considered to be improper. Last but not least, human capital, in terms of education, is rather inefficient.

Coming back to the idea of Nature city, I don't see any reason to call it anymore. Timber industry and palm oil business, by rights, should have generated enough income to improve the town and diversify the business and industry of the economy. Too bad, I have not seen any improvements in terms of business activities. Importantly, the timber industry and palm oil business have created a massive destruction to our nature, especially the reserved jungle. We are on the verge of losing mother's nature and also the living standards. Corruption and bad management have destroyed the lives of others. The small town should have used the earned money to improve the city but now it has fallen to the same old path of wasting money, destroying mother's nature, and killing the town.