Malaysia Confident Of Reaching SIFE Final

PUTRAJAYA, Sept 30 (Bernama) -- The Malaysian team in the Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) competition, which will be represented by Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS), is confident of reaching the final of the 2009 SIFE World Cup in Germany next month.

Team's head Azalia Abdul Rahman said the team, comprising 11 UMS students, had prepared all the materials for the competition including video and slide presentations.

"We have worked almost three years on four projects which we will present at the competition," she told a news conference at the Higher Education Ministry here Wednesday.

The four projects, which involved the participation of the locals in Sabah, had been successful in increasing their income by more than 100 per cent, she said.

The projects are the Kampung Kipouvo Homestay, Green It, Turkish Farm and Sambitan cloth marketing.

Deputy Higher Education Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah said SIFE is the annual competition for successful community-based projects around the world.

He said that this year, participants would be from 40 countries including Australia, China, Canada, Germany, Nigeria, France, South Africa, Brazil, Egypt, the United Kingdom and the United States.

"Malaysia is not new to this competition. The Malaysian Team finished second at the 2003 World Championship in Frankfurt and was a finalist at the 2001 World Championship in London as well as in Barcelona (2004) and Paris (2006)," he said.