Abstract
This chapter describes the changing patterns of Sarawak’s export trade from the late nineteenth century to the present, and discusses their implications for the fate of a high biomass society. Its main contribution is to collect trade statistics in and beyond Sarawak in order to identify the long-term trends and changes from the perspective of global economic history. From the 1870s to 1913 Sarawak became integrated into the Singapore-centred network of Southeast Asian export economies, largely by exporting primary products for local and regional consumption. From c.1914 to 1940 the composition shifted towards international commodities, especially rubber and oil. From 1946 to 2013 new commodities, such as timber, natural gas and oil palm, were added. Sarawak’s postwar trade growth became progressively dependent on the growth of East and Southeast Asian economies, especially Japan and Malaysia. While acknowledging the successful export performance, the chapter also sketches the process of progressive disarticulation between the export sector and the local economy and society, with an increasing dependence on oil and natural gas. It suggests that such a tendency was a likely outcome for the resource-rich periphery, especially if the economy was not administered by a state intent on linking resource revenues to the improvement of the welfare of local society.
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Notes
- 1.
The Straits dollar was a silver coin circulated in Southeast Asia (mainly the Straits Settlements, the Malay Peninsula and Borneo) as legal tender of the Straits Settlements in the nineteenth century. After 1899 the Straits dollar came to be issued as paper currency and its value was pegged to the pound sterling by the Straits Settlements government in the shift to the gold exchange standard.
- 2.
It is not easy to know exactly where Sarawak’s exports to Singapore eventually went and what proportion was consumed in Singapore, especially during the period from the Second World War to its independence in 1965, as the country went through several political changes. The Direction of Trade Statistics complied by the International Monetary Fund treats Singapore (along with Sarawak and the Federation of Malaya) as an entity of ‘foreign trade’, so trade between Singapore and the Federation of Malaya (and between Sarawak and Singapore and between Sarawak and the Federation of Malaya) was recorded from 1958 to 1962 (IMF and IBRD 1962). The notes contained in Chief Statistician at Singapore (1951) Malayan statistics, on the other hand, describe the gradual development of Malayan statistics since 1946, and offer statistics of trade between Sarawak and Malaya (including the figures for Sarawak’s oil exports to Malaya) in 1950. However, trade between Singapore and the Federation of Malaya is not included in this document.
- 3.
While sources are not always explicit, ‘dollars’ refer to the Sarawak dollar to 1953, the Malaya and British Borneo dollar from then to 1967, and the Malaysian dollar (ringgit) after that. The Sarawak dollar was equivalent to 2s.4d. (sterling), thus the same value as the Malayan dollar.
- 4.
For a brief description of the sources and methods of calculation of figures for world trade, Asia’s trade and intra-Asian trade, see Sugihara (2017: 130).
- 5.
This source states that all the oil produced in Brunei and Sarawak was refined at Lutong, near Miri. A substantial amount of crude petroleum may have been imported from Brunei, refined at Lutong and exported as refined petroleum from Sarawak, at least for an early period of time (Porritt 1997: 234, 242).
- 6.
These figures are denominated in Sarawak dollars.
- 7.
In 1958, $611 million of petroleum products were imported into Singapore; $299 million of petroleum products were then exported from Singapore to other foreign countries with about $66 million being exported to the Federation of Malaya. The remaining amount (approximately $246 million) must have been consumed in Singapore (Singapore Department of Statistics 1958). These figures are denominated in Malayan dollars.
- 8.
‘Sundries’ is an established category in trade statistics. It is an unusual category in that the contents change rapidly over the years. It usually refers to various traditional, modern and hybrid manufactured goods ranging from straw mats to European umbrellas, cheap toys, matches, tooth brushes and medicine. But these categories began to include lots of electrical goods and plastic products in the 1950s and 1960s, some of them rather sophisticated and high value added.
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Kobayashi, A., Sugihara, K. (2020). Changing Patterns of Sarawak’s Exports, c.1870–2013. In: Ishikawa, N., Soda, R. (eds) Anthropogenic Tropical Forests. Advances in Asian Human-Environmental Research. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-7513-2_27
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