KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 12 — The opposition has proposed the establishment of a national entity to manage rare earth elements (REE) as a new source of national wealth in the post-petroleum era.
Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin said the entity was necessary to prevent non-radioactive raw materials worth more than RM800 billion from being sold cheaply without value-added processing or lost through illegal mining activities.
“We therefore propose the establishment of Reenas to manage these resources in an integrated manner, from exploration to the processing of downstream products,” he said when debating the Supply (Budget) Bill 2027 in the Dewan Rakyat today.
He also said Malaysia needed to move beyond merely selling cheap electricity to foreign data centres and instead become an Asean energy powerhouse by exporting clean energy, owning regional grid infrastructure and developing energy technology.
