KUCHING, May 18 — Sarawak Premier Tan Sri Abang Johari Openg today said the state’s revenue collection this year is projected to breach the RM16 billion mark, surpassing the RM13.78 billion collected last year.

He said the projection does not take into account the revenue that will come from carbon trading and Petros as the sole gas aggregator in Sarawak.

"For the first three months of this year, we have collected RM4.78 billion.

"Based on a simple arithmetic, on the economic assumption that we collect an average of RM4 billion for every three months for the rest of this year, we will get a total of RM16 billion or even more,” he said during a townhall session at Universiti Malaya with Sarawak university students studying in peninsula Malaysia.

Abang Johari, who is also the state finance and new economy minister, said the state’s revenue is expected to increase substantially in the next three years or so.

However, he said the increase will depend on how fast Sarawakians can introduce new ways of doing things and embrace technological innovations based on data that change the whole value chain.

"What I am saying is that we have to widen our revenue base which are within our rights under the Malaysia Agreement 1963 and Inter-Governmental Committee (IGC) Report,” the premier said.

He added that innovation is part of the Sarawakian culture.

The premier said the state government, in collaboration with Universiti Malaya, is headhunting for a professor to fill the vacant post at the Aerospace Faculty to be set up at the state-owned I-CATS University College.

He said the search for the professor will cover international universities.

He said he has instructed I-CATS University College to set up the Aerospace Faculty to prep the state’s entry to the space industry.