Search Results for: Malaysia

Keith Nuthall
THE MALAYSIAN tycoon Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary has proposed a RM7billion (US$2bn) road network in Johor as part of long-term plans to turn the southern Malaysian state into a major international aviation and shipping hub to rival Singapore. The ambitious plan involves the construction of three dedicated roads to link Senai Airport, the two ports in the state – Tanjung Pelepas and Pasir Gudang -and the new customs, immigration and quarantine complex in Johor Baru.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CHINA has admitted that it has encountered “unexpected difficulties” in setting up low duty import tariffs for wool and cotton. The EU, Argentina, Malaysia and Brazil have said at the WTO’s agriculture committee that while they “understood China’s problems,” they “were also disappointed,” that the January 1 deadline for establishing the quotas was missed.…

BY MARK ROWE
THE MALAYSIAN government is to press ahead with its decision to transfer all passenger jet operations from Subang airport in the centre of Kuala Lumpur to KLIA, (Kuala Lumpur International Airport), the new international airport 40 miles outside the city, by July this year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union has “expressed concern” and “disappointment” over China’s failure to met a January 1 deadline to establish low duty tariff quotas for imports of sugar, palm oil and some other commodities under the terms of its accession to the World Trade Organisation.…

BY MARK ROWE
THE INDONESIAN state-owned oil and gas firm Pertamina is to cut its workforce by more than 33 per cent as it moves towards privatisation. Up to 10,000 jobs will go, reducing the workforce to 16,000. Some 2,000 employees will be let go every year even though the company admitted the action was ” a drastic step” with a high social cost.…

BY MARK ROWE
PETRONAS NGV, a unit of Malaysia’s state oil and gas company Petroliam Nasional Bhd, plans to spend at least RM22 million (Pounds 4 million) this year to double the number of its service stations selling natural gas to fuel cars to 44 outlets.…

BY MARK ROWE
THAI-JAPANESE joint venturers have floated a plan to turn a hillside in northern Thailand into one of the world’s most unlikely ski venues. Leisure Patine International Co Ltd, which has previously developed ice rinks in Thai shopping centres, has suggested that Japanese snow-making machines could be used to establish a ski slope near the town of Chiang Mai, a place better known as a haven for European and Australian backpackers.…

BY MARK ROWE
SENAI Airport Terminal Services, which manages Malaysia’s Johor’s airport at Senai, has appointed Hochtief Airport GmBh of Germany to help transform Malaysia’s Johor airport at Senai into a transportation hub. The RM800 million (pounds 160m) project aims to increase the airport’s airfreight to 100,000 tonnes a year by 2008 from its present figure of 7,000 tones.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Trade Organisation has launched a general round at its summit in Qatar, which will include negotiations on liberalising export and import regimes for so-called industrial goods such as fish.

These talks have a final deadline of 2005 and, said the meeting’s communiqué, will try “to reduce or as appropriate eliminate tariffs, including the reduction or elimination of tariff peaks, high tariffs, and tariff escalation, as well as non-tariff barriers, in particular on products of export interest to developing countries.”…

BY MONICA DOBIE
TALISMAN Energy Inc. are in talks with Asian companies and Saudi princes interested in buying the firm’s controversial Sudanese oil assets, reports the London Financial Times.

It says Jim Buckee, the companies’ CEO, claimed “issues would be resolved by Christmas,” and that projects in Malaysia and Trinidad would replace Sudanese oil production, which contributes 11 per cent, of Talisman’s worldwide output.…