This pre-feasibility study develops a practical and implementable program to develop the Sarawak (Malaysia)–West Kalimantan (Indonesia) border area (within a broad geographic context), based on specific industry value chains. It identifies concrete and high-impact projects that will advance implementation of an integrated border area development program for West Kalimantan. It maps the optimal configuration of Sarawak–West Kalimantan cross-border trade and investment in goods and services; and, concurrently, provides the design of a border area development plan for the two territories. As a pre-feasibility study, we examine a wide range of industry options and determine which projects are economically viable within the socioeconomic, institutional, and political context of Sarawak and West Kalimantan. We follow the same analytical approach as that for the pilot project study of North Kalimantan and Sabah, which serves as a high-profile demonstration pre-feasibility study for this and other border area development programs.

This study maps the optimal configuration of North Kalimantan–Sabah cross-border trade and investment in goods and services; and, concurrently, it provides a preliminary (pre-feasibility) design of a border area development plan for the two territories. The options for moving project proposals forward are elaborated in sufficient detail and contain the needed concrete measures that will permit the overall collaboration program to move through subsequent stages of development into the final implementation and operational phases.

There are six objectives to the study. The first is to analyze existing trade patterns between Sabah and North Kalimantan and the competitive advantages of the two territories. The second is to propose a border economic area spread over a wide geographic area that covers a network of interrelated activities. The third is to investigate a range of cross-border trade and investment opportunities in specific goods and services that can serve as high-profile, demonstrable projects for the border economic area. The fourth is to determine the preference orderings of project features by key stakeholders such as government and development partners, commercial entities, and the local population. The fifth is to estimate the net monetary returns for the project portfolio, ranks stakeholders’ non-monetary preferences, and incorporate the latter results into the net monetary returns. And the sixth is to provide an overall program appraisal for the set of projects, including an impact analysis of connectivity options.

This study examines potential investment opportunities for cross-border value chains in the economic corridors of the Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA).

It offers an investment perspective that is grounded on extensive interviews with company representatives and public sector officials. Qualitative and quantitative-based surveys were conducted over a six-week period by the study team that interviewed 70 companies distributed over 20 industry classifications or divisions in six BIMP-EAGA corridor states and provinces. The surveys were carried out through one-on-one interviews with company representatives and the results were used to rate not only investment opportunities in different industries, but also soft and hard infrastructural conditions that affect the investment climate.

This study examines the investment climate impacting on decisions to invest in the economic corridors of the Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA). The key factors identified by businesses as impacting on their investment decisions in BIMP-EAGA’s corridors are complementarities in cross-border production activities and services, investment incentives, hard and soft infrastructure, the regulatory environment, governance, and other issues affecting cross-border investments.

Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA) sub-regional trade agreement growth area strategy on trade, agro-business, transport and trade to identify leading sectors and industries to promote exports and investment-oriented activities in specific geographic regions of each country, including analysis of growth markets with and outside region

In Brunei-Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines - East Asean Growth Area. Vol. II. Manila: Asian Development Bank, 1997.

Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA) Sub-regional trade agreement growth area strategy to promote exports and investment-oriented activities in specific geographic regions of each country, covering trade, finance, agro-industry, logistics and transport facilitation in the context of five designated economic corridors