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ST: MALAYSIA IN TURMOIL Cracking the whip at Umno

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July 10, 2008
MALAYSIA IN TURMOIL Cracking the whip at Umno
By Karim Raslan, For The Straits Times
MOST Malaysians have been appalled by the succession of press conferences, statutory declarations, accusations and counter-accusations that have hogged headlines for the past two weeks. The mud-slinging has made Malaysia the laughing stock of Asia. But Malaysians can't just turn their backs on what's happened because there are important lessons to be learnt from the experience. First and foremost is the need to proceed with the stalled reform agenda. In 2004, Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi promised change. He failed to deliver and suffered the consequences on March 8, after which he reiterated the same promises. Now, more than ever, amid the debris of numerous scandals, the entire nation can see the extent to which crucial institutions - the police, the judiciary and the prosecution in particular - have been weakened and politicised. Malaysians cannot wait for the Umno leadership battle to be resolved and the Prime Minister cannot disappoint them again. Malaysians will forgive neither him nor his party. He must act and push the conservatives within the Cabinet to move forward. Second, the government's credibility must be safeguarded. As Mr Shabery Chik, one of the more open-minded Cabinet ministers, says: 'Credibility is something you build up. But once it's lost, it's very difficult to regain.' Given the current pathetic levels of trust, the government has a lot of work to do. Third, Umno needs to be brought to heel and disciplined. Many of the current problems faced by the nation are due to Umno's overwhelming influence within the administration and the inability of its leadership to control prominent party members, especially the all-powerful division chiefs. There is a web of relationships linking the party, the civil service, business and the security apparatus. This network needs to be opened up and subjected to scrutiny. Backroom deals have to be exposed to the light of day. For decades, Umno has presented itself as the saviour of the Malays and arbiter of the national consensus. Past party leaders such as Tun Dr Ismail and Tun Abdul Razak were wise and pragmatic. But Umno has since become middle-aged and lazy. Its cikgu or teacher ethos of the past has been usurped by the wheeler-dealer businessman in his black SUV. Now, as the Malay proverb says, pagar makan padi - the fence devours the rice, the guardian has turned on its charges. Umno chiefs, warlords and their financial backers - rumours suggest the party's upcoming leadership contest will involve hundreds of millions of ringgit - must be accountable to the Constitution and the institutions of state. If they break the law, they should suffer the consequences. This is where the reform agenda - the calls for a more open, fair and law-abiding Malaysia - is important. Malaysians need Datuk Seri Abdullah to remain focused on this agenda. Get it right and the reform agenda will be his legacy. Get it wrong and nothing else will save him. But many in Umno don't consider this to be a priority. For them, it's secondary - the kind of issue only liberals, spoilt middle-class journalists and noisy lawyers are interested in. Whenever I discuss such matters with Umno types, they'll reply: 'Karim, the voters in my kawasan don't care about these things.' I have to disagree: Umno's poor showing in the March 8 elections was due to its refusal to acknowledge and address core issues of justice, fairness and equality - issues that Malaysians directly experience when 'enterprising' Umno leaders suddenly acquire large houses and countless expensive cars and go on lavish foreign holidays. Still, there are those in the Cabinet like Zaid Ibrahim and Shahrir Samad who do recognise these weaknesses and have tried to convince their colleagues that restoring trust in institutions is a top priority. Mr Shabery, for one, says refreshingly: 'We need to realise that we do have a track record and culture of service. We needn't be afraid of openness.' The ugly face-off between opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim and Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak can be directly attributed to the current imbalance of authority - on the one hand, a severely compromised security and legal apparatus and, on the other, a pumped-up executive beholden to no one but the party and its warlords. This has created an environment riddled with corruption, slovenliness, self-importance and racism. The credibility crisis is eating away at the Malaysian consensus. It is undermining its capacity to move forward at a critical juncture economically when leadership and focus are required to guide the nation through a period of inflationary turbulence. Malaysians do not trust the security apparatus to act fairly and impartially. And this lack of trust has emboldened opposition leader Anwar to play to the gallery. He knows that in the absence of a credible legal forum, the court of the public becomes the ultimate arbiter of his innocence or guilt. Umno, the party of Merdeka, must come to terms with modernity. The party has lost all sense of propriety and service. It is focused on serving its own needs. The mass of Malays and Malaysians has been forgotten. The writer is a Malaysian columnist. SPUN OUT OF CONTROL Umno needs to be brought to heel and disciplined. Many of the current problems faced by the nation are due to Umno's overwhelming influence within the administration and the inability of its leadership to control prominent party members, especially the all-powerful division chiefs.

FT: In laksa heaven

In laksa heaven

By Madhur Jaffrey

Published: May 24 2008 03:00 | Last updated: May 24 2008 03:00

In the middle of Adelaide, bounded by Gouger and Grote streets, is Central Market, the city's pulsing heart. Built in 1869, as a food market it has outlasted Covent Garden in London and Les Halles in Paris. With its mix of cafés, sweet shops, meats, the freshest fruit and vegetables, and the occasional strolling players, it offers families a glorious one-stop mix of food, shopping and entertainment.

Central Market reflects how Australia has changed from being an outpost of the western, meat and potatoes world to somewhere that has become deliciously cosmopolitan with a very Asian slant.

On my first visit, about 11 years ago, I went looking for laksa. Having been told that Asian Gourmet, a small café at the market, cooked fresh pots of this Malaysian speciality daily, I hurried there as fast as I could and left with a smile of total satisfaction.

Imagine a large, steaming bowl of rice noodles with prawns and chicken and bean curd, immersed in a reddish, lemon grass-perfumed coconut curry sauce, as fiery and flavourful as a human hand can produce, topped with a mélange of raw, crunchy vegetables and herbs - bean sprouts, cucumber bits, sliced red chillies, spring onions and Vietnamese mint - served with a side of chilli sambal and lime slices.

This is curry laksa. There are many regional variations of this soupy, Malaysian noodle dish. I was introduced to my first bowl in Penang, the city's very own tamarind-soured assam laksa. Here was Asia's answer to southern France's fish soup, a very exotic version, where, instead of the dollop of the garlicky rouille on top, the soup had been showered with a fine julienne of a pink, highly aromatic, wild ginger flower and slivers of fresh, sour pineapple. I was won over on the spot. How was I to know that a few days later, a plane-ride away in Kuala Lumpur, I would be seduced by its sisterly southern version, curry laksa.

Since that time, I have been looking for laksas everywhere. I have made a quick meal of them at Malaysian airports on my way from here to there, I have eaten them in Singapore where they have a devoted following and then, to my great delight, I found them in Australia.

The family that prepared it was Malaysian, part of a wave of south-east Asian immigrants that have been arriving in Australia for several decades. Some set up small restaurants but others, more importantly, took over farming in the 1970s from earlier waves of older Greek and Italian immigrants. Kitchen gardens with Asian vegetables and herbs began mushrooming in Adelaide's western suburbs, noodles began to be extruded from machines at small Asian-owned factories and small workshops went into the business of producing bean sprouts.

Today, in Adelaide and its environs, where one in five "locals" is of foreign extraction, it is not uncommon to run into a Vietnamese farmer. I find myself driving north-west from Adelaide to Virginia where Hien Le has recently won the Australian Hydroponic Greenhouse Association National Young Achiever of the Year award. It was his father who was the migrant, a butcher with a piggery who arrived in 1981 and began to dream of a hydroponic farm but lacked the mastery of English needed to see it through.

The son has fulfilled his father's dream. In the humid greenhouses, Vietnamese workers quietly tend to hundreds of vines, seemingly rootless, magic stalks growing upwards and then outwards for easy harvesting, each loaded with either pendulous cucumbers or a bounty of tomatoes. In the semi shade of the cucumbers are spring onions, sorrel, Vietnamese mints and basils.

The bean sprouts, in another suburb, are harder to get to as the Chinese owner has perfected some unusual techniques to give the sprouts a longer shelf-life (10 days) and suspects that I might be a spy. He relents in stages, first sitting at his desk in a silent, Hamlet-like stance, tilting his head this way and that to read my real intentions, then unlocking just one room for me, then another and then another. I will not give any of his secrets away. I can say that on the whole, he sprouts his mung beans (which are grown in Queensland) just the way I do in my New York kitchen. In a seven-day process, these beans are soaked, allowed to sit in dark covered, rectangular colanders where they sprout as if underground and develop their white "tails", and are finally washed to free the original beans of their green skins.

In an effort to find the best laksa in Adelaide today, I return to the enclosed Central Market. With Lucia's Fine Food nearby to provide a fine cup of espresso afterwards, Asian Gourmet is there and still good.

I walk on the outer rim of the market, along Gouger Street, past an all-Asian supermarket, to Kopi Tim (168 Gouger Street.) The curry laksa sauce, flavoured here with dried anchovies, may be had with rice or wheat noodles or a mixture of the two. It is very, very good. I drain the last drop. Nothing could be better.

Well, not exactly. There is yet another spot to entice the laksa fanatic. It is in a recently created area in Central Market known as the Food Court. Let not the word "court" give any wrong ideas of exclusivity. In Singapore and Malaysia, food courts are plebeian affairs, of the people and for the people, created in the 1970s and 1980s to take street food hawkers and their carts off the roads, clean up their acts and put them in air-conditioned, sanitary and controllable surroundings.

In Adelaide's Central Market, the Singapore-Malaysian food court model has been imported, wholesale. It is large, crowded, noisy and impersonal, a massive rectangular hall lined with food stalls. You stand in line to buy your food at the stall of your choice and then take your filled containers and cutlery to shared tables and eat. No table manners required. Slurp at will.

Here, there is a food stall named Laksa House. It boasts a world of laksas, including seafood, vegetarian and, for my money (under A$7) the best curry laksa in town.

I ask for curry laksa with mee hoon noodle soup. I am given a bowl that could easily serve two, with a side of chilli-shrimp paste sambal and a chunk of lime. I teeter to the nearest table with my load. Pink prawns float about in the red liquid along with slices of chicken and melt-in-the-mouth, pasta-like forms of fish paste. The fried chunks of bean curd, having soaked in the numerous flavours and aromas, are now all soft and spongy. I stir a spoonful of the sambal (a pounded and sautéed mash of red chillies, dried shrimp and onion) into my laksa, squeeze some lime juice over the top, and, holding my whole head over the bowl to avoid drips, dig in with a pair of chopsticks and a Chinese spoon. Nothing could be better. I am in laksa heaven.

Madhur Jaffrey is the author of a memoir 'Climbing the Mango Trees' and 'Madhur Jaffrey's Far Eastern Cookery'

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

FT: Port groups in battle for supremacy

Port groups in battle for supremacy

By Robert Wright, Transport Correspondent

Published: April 3 2008 05:42 | Last updated: April 3 2008 05:42

The company running one of Asia’s highest-profile port businesses is struggling to find new customers after the Port of Singapore fought back unexpectedly strongly to regain the upper hand in their eight-year-old rivalry.

The only big customers at the Port of Tanjung Pelepas, on the Malaysian peninsula neighbouring Singapore, remain Maersk Line – the world’s largest container line and PTP’s first customer when it opened in 2000 – and Taiwan’s Evergreen Marine, which defected from Singapore in 2002. The failure to win new customers has extinguished much of the optimism that accompanied the initial successes of the privately-owned port, owned 30 per cent by APM Terminals, the ports business of AP Møller-Maersk, Maersk Line’s parent.

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Excel chairman predicts further consolidation - Feb-11

Excel springs surprise with Quintana deal - Jan-29

Government-owned PSA, which runs nearly all Singapore’s terminals, has rebounded partly, executives at publicity-shy PSA suggest privately, because the defections of Maersk and Evergreen to PTP led to a major management shake-up. The company now offers shipping lines joint ventures and dedicated berth space to commit them long-term. PSA’s earlier refusal to grant Maersk such a joint venture helped to drive it to PTP.

However, PSA also, according to people involved in Asian shipping, refuses its normal discounts on port fees to operators of feeder ships that call at PTP as well as Singapore. The tactic has made feeder lines – which ferry containers between hub ports and those not served directly by long-distance ships – reluctant to call at PTP. The lack of feeder links in turn deters new deep-sea shipping lines from taking business to the port. Most depend on small feeder lines to gather cargo for them, unlike Maersk and Evergreen, which unusually operate their own feeder services.

The cross-strait rivalry is typical of the uncompromising struggles between ports in the trans-shipment business. Trans-shipment traffic – containers moved between ships – can switch ports far more easily than business going to and from inland destinations.

Keld Pedersen, senior general manager in PTP’s operations division, admits that PSA’s tactics have caused PTP problems.

“It’s not making competition easier; that’s for sure,” he says.

“But I still strongly believe there are ways to thrive in this setting.”

He insists he will continue to advertise PTP’s cost advantages in the hope of attracting new customers. PTP has much lower labour than costs Singapore, while the land being hacked from the surrounding mangrove swamp and reclaimed from the sea is far cheaper than that in crowded Singapore.

“We believe we have a strong value proposition that is, indeed, worth looking at,” Mr Pedersen says.

However, in trying to prevent PTP from developing a feeder network, PSA is defending its biggest advantage. As the world’s busiest container port, it offers faster, more regular worldwide connections than nearly any other.

There are, nevertheless, signs that PTP is regaining some of the initiative. MISC, Malaysia’s national shipping line, now has one service – a specialist service carrying Halal food – calling at PTP. Negotiations are under way to bring more of the carrier’s services to the port.

Maersk Line could also switch more services to PTP after an existing contract between Maersk and PSA –- inherited when Maersk took over P&O Nedlloyd, the former world number three line, in 2005 – expires.

Mr Pedersen also insists that, even if it would prefer more traffic, PTP is a strong business even with only its present customers. It increased traffic last year by 15.3 per cent and handled 5.5m twenty-foot equivalent units of containers, against the 12.5 per cent growth and 27.9m TEUs of Singapore.

“The business works well, but we have even higher ambitions,” Mr Pedersen says.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

Economist: Malaysia

             

     
Malaysia

Not mellow yellow

Nov 15th 2007 | BANGKOK
From The Economist print edition

The largest anti-government protests for a decade

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NO SELF-RESPECTING protest movement leaves home these days without its own colour scheme. Last weekend, tens of thousands of Malaysians wore canary-yellow shirts to defy a government ban and march in Kuala Lumpur, calling for fairer elections. Riot police blocked routes into the city and fired water cannon to break up the rally.

These were the largest anti-government protests since 1998-99, when angry supporters of a jailed former deputy prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, wore red and adopted the battle-cry of reformasi from neighbouring Indonesia. A decade on, the new buzzword is bersih (clean). But Mr Anwar is out of jail and again leading opposition to the entrenched elite he was once part of.

That entrenchment is maintained, says Mr Anwar, by dubious election procedures and a stacked electoral commission, supported by Malaysia's state-controlled media and a pliant judiciary. Pundits predict that the prime minister, Abdullah Badawi, will go to the polls early next year. This adds to the urgency of calls to overhaul the electoral system.

Those calls met a predictably cool response from ministers. But the message was not aimed only at them. In an echo of last year's anti-government uproar in Thailand, the yellow-clad masses marched to the palace of Malaysia's constitutional monarch to hand in a petition urging clean and fair elections. The palace sent a courtier to accept the document. In both Thailand and Malaysia, yellow is associated with royalty. The difference between the two is that while Thailand's crown wields immense clout, Malaysia's royals are figureheads. Yet that might change.

Under Malaysia's constitution, nine hereditary state sultans share a rotating five-year kingship. The sitting monarch signs bills into law, and formally appoints ministers and judges. But the rubber stamp hit back recently when the sultans refused to approve Mr Badawi's choice for chief justice of a federal court. This unusual setback came as Malaysian lawyers staged their own protest by marching through the streets of the administrative capital, Putrajaya, in September over alleged meddling in the selection of judges. Their ire had been aroused by a video clip distributed by Mr Anwar that appeared to show a notable lawyer offering senior judgeships for sale.

None of this is likely to make much difference to ordinary voters who look to the long-ruling party, the United Malays National Organisation, for stability and growth. The opposition is fragmented and it would take more than electoral reform to vote out a ruling coalition that won 199 out of 219 parliamentary seats in 2004. Raja Petra Kamarudin, an opposition activist, says a realistic target for the next election is 60 seats. Still, even that might be enough to unseat Mr Badawi, who is more vulnerable to his own conniving comrades than to any opposition firebrand. A judicial scandal, mass rallies and an emboldened royalty may not usher in an opposition victory. But it could spell trouble for the man at the top.

Copyright © 2007 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.

FT: Flying, Airports, A380

Come fly with me - at last

By Kevin Done

Published: October 20 2007 03:00 | Last updated: October 20 2007 03:00

Flying on the Airbus A380 superjumbo, dubbed the new "queen of the skies" as it seeks to end the long-held reign of the Boeing 747, will be the most exclusive experience commercial air travel has to offer for many months to come. From October 28, you have a choice of only one route, Singapore to Sydney, and a choice of only one carrier, Singapore Airlines.

After the years of hype about how the world's biggest commercial passenger jet will radically change the flying experience, and all the heartache of Airbus's inability to deliver the plane on time, the day has finally arrived.

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The first scheduled service is due to take off next Sunday from Singapore's Changi airport. The first passengers, though, will be bidders at a charity auction who will fly on the same route to and from Sydney this Thursday. One bidder paid $100,380 to sample one of the carrier's first-class suites.

For those who can wait, Singapore will finally receive a couple more A380s in the first few months of next year, allowing the airline to bring the superjumbo on to its route to London Heathrow in February or March. By May, its fourth A380 should be flying from Singapore to Tokyo.

Due to severe problems fitting the 530km of wiring needed to run the systems on each aircraft, Airbus is having to hand-build the early A380s. As a result, it will be August before other carriers, Emirates and Qantas, receive their first deliveries. Emirates, the fast-growing Dubai-based carrier, has 55 on order, Qantas 20 and Singapore 19. It will be 2010 before Airbus reaches the planned production rate of four a month, barring further hold-ups.

So, for the moment, Singapore Airlines has the field to itself. Chew Choon Seng, the carrier's chief executive, was all smiles this week at Airbus headquarters in Toulouse as he led the way aboard the world's first double-decker airliner, to show for the first time how his airline has made use of the unique amount of space offered by the A380.

The flying experience of passengers promises to be different but not that different. Forget the scares about being caught in a crush of many hundreds of passengers. Although the A380 has been certified through evacuation tests for up to a staggering 853 passengers, Singapore Airlines has fitted 471 seats in three classes - 12 in first class, 60 in business (all on the upper deck) and 399 in economy (split between the decks). That is almost 100 more than the 375-seat lay-out on its Boeing 747-400s, which will gradually be phased out of service.

Qantas is equipping its A380s with 450 seats in four classes: first, business, premium economy and economy. Emirates plans to operate three versions for different routes ranging from a 489-seat, three-class lay-out for long haul flights, a 517-seat spread across three classes and a high density 644-seat for two-class configurations for medium-range flights.

For Singapore Airlines, "the pièce de resistance ," says Chew, is the first-class suite. It is offering the opportunity to create the first double bed on a commercial jet as it sets out to reinvent the concept of luxury air travel. Eight of the suites are beside windows, but four are between the aisles, and for each pair the central partition can be lowered to produce the double bed.

Each of the 12 suites in first class is a private compartment with sliding doors, reaching up to about shoulder height, and fabric screens.

The double bed lay-out received a romantic presentation at this week's unveiling - red petals were scattered across the cream sheets and there was a tray on the bed cover with champagne and a bowl of strawberries.

The privacy offered is only relative, however. Air safety regulations determine that cabin crew can check on the well-being of their passengers and see if they are observing safety rules - such as not smoking in bed, even in first class - and the fabric blinds at the windows of the compartments have two discreet see-through gauze panels.

But Singapore Airlines has at least achieved part of Sir Richard Branson's vision for A380 travel at Virgin Atlantic, which takes its first A380s in 2013. He famously suggested he could offer both double beds and an onboard casino so that his passengers could get lucky twice.

Singapore Airline's new first class enhancements come at a price: a premium of 20-25 per cent above its first class fares on other aircraft.

The suites provide the marketing magic but Singapore Airlines has adopted a hard-headed business approach generally to the use of space on the superjumbo. There are no duty-free shops, casinos, exercise gyms, showers or bowling alleys as suggested in the wilder hype of the A380's initial marketing.

"The reality is that we are all commercial enterprises," says Chew. "We must look at the revenue-generating opportunities of the floor space. We could not find [enough] customers willing to pay to justify not having seats and instead having space [for] common use. The first Boeing 747s had lounges and bars on their upper decks but it was not long before all the airlines put seats up there and began generating revenue."

In business class, Singapore Airlines is also raising the stakes. All the seats are forward facing, have aisle access and unrivalled space, with a length of 76in and a width of 34in making them comfortable flatbeds.

Each business class seat has a 15.4in LCD screen with USB ports, in-seat power, designer bedding, dining ware by Givenchy and an enlarged dining table.

Back in economy, where most travellers will experience the A380 first, the new seats, designed of lighter, thinner materials, provide more legroom.

With a maximum take-off weight of 560 tonnes, the A380 is the giant of the skies but, at take-off, it has half the noise of the Boeing 747-400.

On a test flight this year, cruising at 41,000ft above the Pyrenees and along the west coast of France, the most noticeable difference was the quiet and calm on board. You don't have to raise your voice to carry on a conversation during take-off and, later on in the flight, it was almost disconcerting to hear conversations from the other side of the cabin.

And despite all that extra space in all three cabins and the sense of quiet, if you really still cannot get to sleep at night, there are 100 films, 180 TV programmes and a library of 700 music CDs on the inflight entertainment system. If you want to to stretch your legs, a spiral staircase at the back links the economy class cabins on the two decks. The first A 380s may not have a gym, as the early hype suggested, but this is ultimately a double-decker airliner and it comes with its built-in stairmaster, whichever class you happen to be in.

Kevin Done is the FT's aerospace correspondent

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

Asia's airports operate with flying colours

By Raphael Minder

Published: October 20 2007 03:00 | Last updated: October 20 2007 03:00

On Thursday, there could be a scramble to reach gate F31 at Changi airport in Singapore, where passengers will board the first commercial flight of the new Airbus A380.

But for those who can contain their excitement and choose instead to kick off this historic day for world aviation with a gentle stroll around Changi, there are reasons to be impressed by the airport itself.

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Almost 26 years since its opening, Changi continues to collect almost every prize bestowed on airports by the tourism and travel industries (last year alone it grabbed another 25 of these eclectic awards). More silverware should soon be on the way, as Changi prepares to open in January a third, state-of-the-art terminal, as well as to upgrade the original terminal.

Changi, however, is not the only Asian airport to excel. In fact, recently it was beaten to the top spot by Hong Kong in the closely watched survey of passenger satisfaction conducted by Skytrax, the aviation research organisation. Overall, Asian airports took four of the top five positions in the Skytrax survey, with Seoul Incheon and Kuala Lumpur completing the Asian triumph. Munich, at number four, was their leading challenger while Vancouver, which ranked ninth, was the only North American airport in the top 10.

The 7.8m passengers surveyed by Skytrax put ease of airport usage and waiting times at the top of their list of priorities, with a focus on the efficiency of security checks at a time of heightened concern about terrorism. On that level, it is very hard to fault Changi, which operates a decentralised screening system, with all the checking done at individual gates, thereby avoiding the long queues and bottlenecking that has become one of the most irksome aspects of travelling through many of the world's largest airports.

As with almost every aspect of the airport, the Singaporean authorities did not wait for the aftermath of 9/11 to adopt a decentralised screening approach, which requires more staff but makes the process smoother for passengers. "It's really always been our philosophy to do things well ahead of the demand," says Esther Ee from the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore.

While that might sound like a tired marketing cliché, it is a view endorsed by most pundits and is consistent with the history of Changi's development since 1975, when the Singaporean government agreed to build a new airport. In fact, even the decision to have a third terminal was part of the original master plan for Changi, at a time when Singapore Airlines - a product of the political divorce between Malaysia and Singapore - was still in its infancy and Singapore's traffic was just a fraction of what it is today.

Tony Davis, chief executive of Tiger Airways, which is based in Singapore and is one of Asia's fastest growing low-cost carriers, sees a contrast between airport planning in Asia and the "piecemeal approach" in Europe. Davis, a former BMI British Midland executive, says: "European airports have tended to be built when demand arises while Asian airports seem to be built for the future. We build on the basis on what is needed and then get very surprised two years later when we find we need to build again."

Another case in point is Kuala Lumpur's decision to add a low-cost terminal to help develop AirAsia, the region's biggest budget carrier. Derek Sadubin, chief operating officer at the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation, a Sydney-based consultancy, says: "The Malaysians were very quick at identifying AirAsia's requirements and it shows how some of these Asian airports have been excellent in their long-term planning for the growth that is coming. You're seeing this now in the Middle East."

To be fair to Europeans, however, the building process has also been eased in Asia by the fact that some of the airports have been built on reclaimed land - triggering less debate over planning permission - and generally from scratch. Hong Kong opened its new airport on Lantau island in 1998, but has already lost its new-kid-on-the-block status to several other important transit airports in cities such as Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur. In China, meanwhile, 73 airports are under construction and a further 134 projects are being considered.

Stephen Miller, chief executive of Oasis, one of the five airlines that is using the second terminal that opened in Hong Kong in June, says: "In much of Asia you have been able to start with a clean sheet and that's a huge difference. In places like Heathrow or Frankfurt, it's been about just adding on."

Asian airports such as Hong Kong and Singapore, where flying occurs around the clock, have also developed their transit business, in part by working hard to promote outside activities for passengers with several hours to kill between flights. Hong Kong recently opened a golf course within walking distance of the airport, while anybody facing a five-hour wait in Changi might consider one of the free guided tours of the city-state that have long been on offer.

Sadubin from CAPA says: "Airports in this region have generally been part of a broader national economic and tourism strategy. Singapore is the model that has been replicated and used by several other governments."

Another feature in both Singapore and Hong Kong is what could be deemed the democratisation of its more luxurious facilities, with access to premium lounges as well as activities such as swimming or fitness training open to anybody with a credit card rather than only upper-class passengers.

Fiona Song, business officer for Plaza Premium, a company that runs paying lounges across Asia, expects the concept to gain popularity in regions such as North America, where Plaza Premium now operates in Vancouver. "I also really think that it makes for better lounges,'' she argues. "People who pay for something are more demanding and expect better services, otherwise they don't come back."

Raphael Minder is an FT correspondent based in Hong Kong

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

A long-haul flight

By Claire Wrathall

Published: October 20 2007 03:00 | Last updated: October 20 2007 03:00

                                     

                 

On the flight deck, we have Captain Greg, who's contemplating the end of his career as he frets about his health, assisted by tyro first officer Dan. The passengers are in the capable hands of (increasingly flying phobic) cabin manager Selina. Then there's Nigel, the purser in first class, resigned to the fact that he will never see promotion but taking vicarious pleasure in the affluence of those he looks after. There's contentedly unambitious Wendy and a cast of other crew in lesser cabins such as Becky, who "knows some hosties wear wedding rings so they at least appear married or, as someone once told her, because it attracts pilots".

No one has a surname in Henry Sutton's determinedly undramatic but meticulously observed novel Flying , a kind of literary Air Babylon, about the crew of an aircraft as it flies between Heathrow and JFK. The plot is mostly incidental but a succession of interior monologues reveals not just the crews' characters and the tensions between them, but a lot about the logistics of flying - the cloud forms, the coordinates, the radio dialogue between pilots and air traffic control and the minutiae of life on board. Air stewarding may seem like a routine occupation but staff know neither where they'll be going, nor who their colleagues will be, nor which cabin they'll be assigned to when they report for a shift. This uncertainty is aggravated by the jet lag, disorientation and exhaustion that goes with the job, not to mention the sense of responsibility a small underpaid team can feel in overseeing nearly 400 passengers.

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But if there's a lot in Flying to make one sympathise with cabin crew, there are equally details you would probably rather not know. Not least that "there used to be this fad when everyone, the girls as well as the guys, held contests to see how many rolls they could get into their knickers after they'd been warmed - the record stands at eight". Which explains, perhaps, why in economy at least, most airlines now serve packaged bread.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

BT: What price good government?

   

Views & Opinions

Published April 19, 2007

What price good government? Singaporeans stand to gain more than a first-class government from ministerial pay rise     By TAN SHAO QIAN            Email this article Print article Feedback ARE you convinced by Lee Hsien Loong's argument? Pay a Singapore minister or the prime minister an annual income you would probably never be able to save in your lifetime. The reason being to maintain a first-class team.       Upright: Most Asian countries do not pay their leaders shockingly high salaries on the table but they are paying a much higher price for their leaders' corruption and incompetence under the table Multiply that figure by two plus and the $3 million salary becomes more than RM7 million - a shocking amount, especially for us who are a strip of water away from Singapore. Difficult to accept? But let us look at some stories besides the remuneration: Singapore was a country in a weak position with no resources when it was separated from Malaysia in 1965. Incidentally, the ringgit-Singapore dollar exchange rate was one to two; but barely 40 years later, the situation is reversed. The wealth of Singaporeans has doubled. Not only that, when Malaysia's per capita income was US$5,000 in 2006, that of Singapore was US$28,000, comparable to that of the US, Europe and Japan. However, there is more to it. They have the world's busiest port, airport and financial hub. Just as Lee Kuan Yew has said, which country in the world has risen from Third World to First World in one generation like Singapore. If this still does not justify the million-dollar pay rise for Singapore ministers, then let us look at it from another angle. Malaysia's Bank Negara lost RM30 billion in foreign exchange speculation during the Asia financial crisis; the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) suffered RM3 billion in paper losses and RM500 million in bad debt in 2004 and a host of third class projects chalked up large amounts of additional costs. In addition, national enterprises - MAS and Proton - each lost a few billion ringgit due to mismanagement. And in the ongoing Perwaja corruption suit, RM1.5 billion was lost before Eric Chia took over. Then, there was Bumiputra Finance and many other corruption cases where investigation results were not disclosed. One disheartening fact is that such a situation is not exclusive to Malaysia. The majority of countries in Asia and the region do not pay their Cabinet members shockingly high salaries on the table but they are paying a much higher price for their leaders' corruption and incompetence under the table. For instance, Taiwan and Thailand have become international scandals. The top leaders of the two countries are involved in corruption along with their families and friends. They have not only plundered huge amounts of wealth but have also undertaken projects while skimping on building materials. They have caused their countries to lose out in competitiveness and foreign investment due to their nepotism and loss of credibility. The incompetence of the Chen Shui-bian government, in particular, has caused Taiwan to fall from first to the last place among the four Asian dragons in a short span of four years. And there is the Philippines, which has been seeing constant leadership changes and worsening corruption, and Indonesia, labelled the most corrupt country. If the losses of these countries had been used to pay a first-class team, which had the courage to commit itself and the ability and competence to lead the country to progress like that of Singapore's, you would be shocked by the number of years the amount would last even if the ministers' salaries were pegged to market rates. More importantly, spending the money in this way will most probably translate into a jump in the people's per capita income and national currency, transforming the country into a clean and honest nation with highest credibility in its legal system, policies, and efficiency. Of course, Singapore leaders who wish to maintain friendly ties with neighbouring countries cannot say all this, so they took three days to debate the issue. Thus, I can't help but say: sober up, what harm is there to peg their salaries to the market standards? As long as there is a first-class team to lead the country forward and build an honest and efficient government, the people will definitely get much more than the million-dollar pay rise.    This commentary appeared in Malaysia's Sin Chew Jit Poh on April 17, 2007. It has been translated into English

FT: Malaysia anti-graft chief sacked as election looms

Malaysia anti-graft chief sacked as election looms

By John Burton in Singapore

Published: April 2 2007 03:00 | Last updated: April 2 2007 03:00

Malaysia's government has dismissed its top anti-graft official amid a corruption investigation in an effort to bolster its credibility ahead of a general election expected this year.

The government said it would not renew the contract for Zulkipli Mat Noor, head of the Anti-Corruption Agency, after it expired at the weekend. It did not refer to the inquiry into his conduct.

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The issue of corruption is seen as the biggest threat to Abdullah Badawi's government, which is expected by many to call an election in the final quarter of 2007 to take advantage of strong economic growth. The prime minister led the government to a landslide victory in the last election in 2004.

The government has been shaken by a string of high-profile scandals and Malaysia's ranking in several international surveys measuring corruption has slipped in the past year.

Mr Zulkipli was accused by one of his former officials of amassing "substantial property and assets through corrupt practices", an allegation he has denied. The deputy internal security minister has also been accused of corruption; he denies that he was bribed to free criminal suspects from jail.

Mr Abdullah had earlier rejected demands that the officials be dismissed while investigations were continuing, saying that 85 per cent of the complaints filed with the authorities were baseless. The treatment of Mr Zulkipli is a sign that the government had decided it must respond more strongly to public outcry over graft.

Mr Abdullah has long maintained a clean image in Malaysia's murky political world and promised to crack down on graft when he took over in 2003. He launched an investigation into the police force, viewed as the country's most corrupt agency, and several senior government officials were indicted for graft. But there has been little progress in securing convictions and carrying out proposed police reforms.

Transparency International last month ranked Malaysia 44th among 163 countries included in its annual corruption perceptions index, down from 39th the year before. The fall is embarrassing for Malaysia as it seeks to reverse a decline in foreign direct investment, which fell 14 per cent to $4bn last year.

The ruling National Front coalition is almost certain to win the next election but a drop in voter support due to lack of progress in fighting corruption could weaken Mr Abdullah.

The prime minister is -facing rising criticism for -proposing to relax affirmative action rules for the ethnic Malay majority to attract foreign investment. He risks alienating his biggest support base. Mahathir Mohamad, his predecessor, said last week that Malays could be "enslaved again" by foreigners if government dropped such rules for an economic zone near Singapore.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

FT: Abdullah relaxes rules to create Malaysia's Shenzhen

Abdullah relaxes rules to create Malaysia's Shenzhen

By John Burton in Singapore

Published: March 28 2007 03:00 | Last updated: March 28 2007 03:00

Abdullah Badawi, Malaysia's prime minister, has des-cribed the planned Iskandar Development Region in the southern state of Johor as playing the same role for Singapore as Shenzhen does for Hong Kong by offering a cheap place to do business.

But Iskandar also resembles Shenzhen as a laboratory to promote economic reforms, just as the Chinese special economic zone did in the 1990s.

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Among incentives recently announced by Mr Abdullah to encourage foreign investment in Iskandar was the easing of affirmative action rules favouring the ethnic Malay majority, often seen as the biggest obstacle to attracting overseas capital.

Under what is known as the New Economic Policy, foreign investors are re-quired to offer a 30 per cent stake in businesses to a local ethnic Malay partner. The government is to abolish the rule for selected service in-dustries in Iskandar, including healthcare, tourism and education.

Christopher Woods, chief strategist at CLSA, says the announcement "is the latest and most dramatic piece of good news to come out of Malaysia", which is also relaxing foreign exchange rules and scrapping property gains tax to promote capital inflows.

Officials connected with the project say the concessions are the cutting edge of broader reforms to reverse a drop in foreign direct investment, which fell by 14 per cent to $4bn (€3bn, £2bn) last year.

The easing of affirmative action rules is likely to provoke a backlash from the ruling United Malays Na-t-ional Organisation, which has ruled Malaysia since 1957 based on its championing of rights for ethnic Malays and its policy to close the income gap with the ethnic Chinese minority.

Mr Abdullah hopes to re-duce political resistance by applying the economic re-forms to Johor, an Umno stronghold and home to many of Malaysia's cabinet ministers.

"If we can show them that this policy will benefit them directly with increased foreign investment, they may accept more change. If we succeed in Johor, we can introduce the reforms elsewhere in Malaysia," says one official.

Malaysia has followed a similar strategy in eroding the NEP by creating special economic zones that exclude affirmative action rules, including for manufacturing, information technology and financial services. But services remain a bastion of the policy when Malaysia wants to reduce its dependence on manufacturing.

Musa Hitam, a former deputy prime minister who sits on the Iskandar advisory panel, is proposing bolder reforms by suggesting the NEP should be abolished in the new economic zone.

Scepticism remains on whether Malaysia can follow through on its promises. Local bureaucrats have been accused of interfering with investment applications, such as placing limits on the hiring of foreign workers. Mr Abdullah has promised to unveil steps to strengthen central government super-vision of local governments to prevent such problems.

The government also hopes to win local support by requiring foreign investors to contribute to a social welfare fund for Iskandar that would benefit mainly ethnic Malays, with officials saying that prospective foreign investors have not raised objections to the proposal.

Iskandar has set a target of attracting $105bn in investments over the next 20 years, including from the Middle East and Japan, to support the building of theme parks, retirement homes and universities in an area three times the size of next-door Singapore.

The biggest single source of investment could come from Singapore, since land and labour cost much less in Johor. But a surge of Singapore investments could also raise nationalist hackles in Malaysia. Bilateral ties have been prickly since the two ended a brief union in 1965.

Malaysia has already been forced to drop discussion of plans to introduce passport-free entry to Iskandar for foreigners because of local fears about a large influx of Singaporeans.

Chua Hak Bin, an economist at Citigroup in Singapore, says the proposed re-form for Iskandar "enlarges the opportunities and economic space for Singapore" and could reverse a decline in cross-border trade and investment. Singapore has long sought to develop a cheap manufacturing hinterland based around Johor and the neighbouring Riau islands in Indonesia.

But Iskandar's emphasis on offering incentives for services instead of manufacturing "does not appear to be designed towards addressing Singapore's handicap: a shortage and high cost of land. On the contrary, the targeted services industries look more directed at competition with, rather than complementing, Singapore," said Mr Chua.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

FT: Malaysia’s Anwar seeks return to power

Malaysia’s Anwar seeks return to power

By Tom Burgis in London

Published: March 15 2007 11:52 | Last updated: March 15 2007 15:31

Anwar Ibrahim, the former golden boy of Malaysian politics, said on Thursday he hopes to stand for prime minister in elections that could be held by the end of this year.

The former deputy prime minister spent five years in prison convicted of sodomy and corruption after accusing his government colleagues of graft.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Anwar said he would stand in May for the presidency of the opposition Keadilan party, a post currently held by his wife. He said he would seek the premiership in elections late this year or early next, provided he wins the backing of his party’s allies.

Either ambition could put him in violation of a ban on holding political office that lasts until April 2008. The ban was imposed automatically after a corruption conviction that resulted from a widely criticised trial shortly after he was fired as deputy prime minister in 1998 by Mahathir Mohamad, then premier and his erstwhile mentor.

Abdullah Badawi, Mr Mahathir’s successor as prime minister, could lift Mr Anwar’s ban but Mr Anwar said he would challenge the ban in the courts were it not lifted. “I don’t have a choice,” Mr Anwar said during a visit to London. “Either I opt out and stay overseas or return to Malaysia and work with my friends...I hope not to return to jail but it is a risk I have to take.”

Mr Anwar, 59, ruled out a return to the ruling Umno party, describing it as “corrupt to the core”. Currently an adviser to the World Bank, he hopes to bolster Keadilan’s flagging fortunes with a platform of economic growth, institutional reform and tackling graft.

However, Tamara Lynch, research analyst at Chatham House, a London think-tank, said Mr Anwar’s moment may have passed. ”His supporters saw him as a Nelson Mandela of Malaysia who would come to power and change everything. But now not that much needs to change.”

For a man who adhered to the Washington Consensus of fiscal austerity as finance minister during the Asian financial crisis, Mr Anwar has travelled a long way. If elected, he said he would use the soaring profits of Petronas, the state oil company, to fund a rural education drive and other soc

Separately, Mr Anwar also revealed he had written to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s anti-bribery committee in his role as president of the British-based AccountAbility think-tank. His letter denounced the British government’s much-criticised role in the cancellation of the Serious Fraud Office’s investigation into alleged corruption in arms deals between BAE and Saudi Arabia.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

Today: M'sia boleh or not?

	M'sia boleh or not? Plans to make country more  appealing to foreign firms under way, but will investors bite? Monday • March 5, 2007 Tor Ching Li in Johor Baru  chingli@mediacorp.com.sg DRAWN by the prospect of cheaper land and labour, Singapore-based HG Metal Manufacturing recently decided to expand its operations across the border in Malaysia's new Iskandar Development Region (IDR) — a planned waterfront city three times the size of Singapore. The steel retailer signed an agreement to sink in some $11 million for five lots of freehold industrial land tallying 26.18 acres last month. Said HG Metal CEO Wee Piew: "The site is just 10 minutes from the Second Link at Tuas and another 20 minutes from our factory in Jurong, so it makes sense. Also, you can't buy land in Singapore for such a price." According to UEM Land — the company developing Nusajaya, a zone within the IDR — there are around five other Singaporean companies interested in setting up their operations in Nusajaya, which is touted as "the world in one city". At the official launch of Nusajaya last month, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said Malaysia aims to attract US$105 billion ($160 billion) in investments into Johor over the next 20 years, with RM50 billion ($21.9 billion) drawn in over the next five years. A tad ambitious? Perhaps. But according to some, absolutely necessary. In a report released last October, Citigroup economist Chua Hak Bin stated: "Malaysia today is a pale shadow of what it was 10 years ago. "Whether measured in terms of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) draw, stock market capitalisation or trading volumes, Malaysia is slipping down the ladder. The latest United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) FDI rankings put Malaysia at 62nd place." Two years prior to the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997, Malaysia was sixth in the Unctad ranking and Singapore was second. Now, Singapore is ranked fifth. Economists agree that the IDR plays a key role in Malaysia's concerted effort to boost its FDI figures that have been languishing since the Asian financial crisis. Mr Ramon Navaratnam, a former chief economic advisor to the Malaysian government, said: "The IDR should make a major contribution to the country's FDI partly because of its synergies with Singapore and the nature of the project." Some controversy has arisen over Malaysia's latest posting of rosy FDI figures. While the Unctad World Investment Report 2006 estimates that Malaysia's FDI is US$3.9 billion — or 1.6 per cent less than the US$4 billion the year before — Malaysia's Trade Minister Rafidah Aziz claims that Malaysia drew a record RM20.2 billion in foreign investments for its manufacturing sector, a 12.8-per-cent increase from RM17.9 billion in 2005. According to Mr Navaratnam, the difference could just be a matter of definition. "It seems the Unctad is using actual FDI figures while Malaysia was stating approved FDI," he said. Number crunching aside, there are undoubtedly several factors that have been deflating investors' confidence in Malaysia. Citigroup economist Chua pointed to a capital control implemented since the Asian financial crisis — the fact that the ringgit cannot be traded overseas. "This continues to taint foreign investor perceptions and hurts market interest and liquidity," he said. The prevalence and pervasiveness of the New Economic Policy (NEP) — to target a 30-per-cent share of the economy for the indigenous Malays, or the bumiputra — also hurts investor confidence. Professor Ooi Kee Beng, political analyst from the Institute of South-east Asian Studies (Iseas), said the NEP also limits the government's flexibility at a time when regional competition for trade and FDI is at its toughest. According to Associate Professor Natasha Hamilton-Hart of Iseas: "Race relations and the bumiputra policy have always been constraints in Malaysia, so it is more likely that other factors explain the change in FDI flows — the most obvious being competition with other host countries like Vietnam and China." Some feel that Malaysia is not moving forward quickly enough. "Former Premier Mahathir Mohamad's gripe against the present regime over the last two years has not only been the dismantling of his pet projects, but also what he perceives as the current government's lack of understanding that nation-building succeeds only if done at high speed," said Prof Ooi. If all goes according to the government's plan, by the time Nusajaya is slated for completion in 2027, the bumiputra policy would have already been phased out in 2020. The original target was to achieve the NEP goals by 1990. Mr Navaratnam acknowledged the gap between policy and implementation and said that Malaysia would like to move faster. He hoped that initiatives to fight corruption would help. Otherwise, the world may pass the country by.
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