Gap Identification of Manufacturing Sector in Brunei Darussalam / Nurafiqah binti Abdullah @ Chai Yew Tin

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering Programme Area of Universiti Teknologi Brunei

Thesis is also available in CD and is not for loan or reference use

Abstract

Brunei Darussalam is a country that has abundant hydrocarbon resources. This has been the country main resources for about 80 years. This makes Brunei very reliant on oil and gas industry. However, due to recent economic crisis, Brunei starts to think about deviating its focus on oil and gas industry by improving other sectors, and one of the sector is manufacturing sector. However, moderate development has been done on this sector and most of the economy growth is still contributed by oil and gas industry. This shows that there is a gap in order to boost the manufacturing sector in Brunei Darussalam. Therefore, this research takes a step towards identifying the gaps in manufacturing sector in Brunei. The main objectives of this research are to identify the internal gap in manufacturing sector in Brunei Darussalam and also the external gap between Brunei and Malaysia manufacturing sector. In order to obtain the data, interviews are conducted in eight of the manufacturing sector in Brunei. The manufacturing companies interviewed in Brunei are food and beverage companies, construction companies and electrical company. Literature review is done for Malaysia manufacturing sector. From the findings, the gap present internally are due to lack of resources, small market in Brunei, lack of local skilled manpower and lack of local workers. On the other hand, the gaps present externally between Brunei and Malaysia are the same as the gap present internally. However, bigger gap is found in term of market and exports. This is because there is a bigger market and vast export opportunities in Malaysia when compare with Brunei. Therefore, from the findings, solutions in tackling the problems can be proposed. Hence, improvement on the existing manufacturing sector in Brunei can be done. Some of the solutions are by developing the sector in utilizing the available raw material in Brunei, promote and attempt to export to the neighboring countries, polish talented young generation or expert in this sector and provide more benefits to attract local to work in the manufacturing sector. By developing this sector, there will be more advantages for the country. One of them is to provide employment for local, especially graduates that has been overwhelming in Brunei currently.

Includes bibliographical references