some of them having become Muslims while the Chinese are mainly Buddhists, Taoist and some Christians. There is also a small number of Hindus, Sikhs, Animists, and secularists. The large group of non-citizens have been identified as a majority Muslim, and there are some Christian Filipino women who converted to Islam to marry Muslim Filipinos here. Like in Kota Kinabalu, the first wave of these immigrants arrived in the late 15th century during the Spanish colonisation, while the others arrived in the early 1970s because of the troubles in southern Philippines. They consist of migrant workers, with many of them being naturalised as Malaysian citizens. However, there are still many who live without proper documentation as illegal immigrants in the town with their own illegal settlement. Languages Like the national language, the people of Sandakan mainly speak Malay, with a distinct Sabahan creole. The Malay language in Sandakan are different from the Malay language in the west coast which resembles Brunei Malay. In Sandakan, this language has been influenced by many words from the Suluk language. As Sandakan had also been dominated by the Hakka and Cantonese Chinese, Hakka and Cantonese widely spoken, while today Mandarin, as well as a lesser extent Cantonese dominates as the lingua franca among both dialect subgroups (since both the local ethnic Chinese populations native to this town shares the same ancestral province in China, Guangdong, in the case of the usage of the Cantonese dialect as a lingua franca amongst both the local Cantonese and Hakka populations, while Mandarin is the standardized spoken form of the Chinese language used in the business and education sectors). While for the east coast Bajau, their language has similarities with the Sama language in the Philippines and also borrowed many words from the Suluk language which is different from the west coast Bajau who had been influenced by the Malayic languages of Brunei Malay. Economy During the British period, Sandakan grew quickly as one of the largest British settlements on the east coast of North Borneo including having been the former capital of the territory. It grew rapidly due to the export activities as a port town. The port is important for palm oil, tobacco, cocoa, coffee, manila hemp and sago exports. In the mid-1930s, the export of tropical timber from Sandakan recorded a level of 180,000 cubic metres which made the town as the world's largest exporter