Search Results for: Malaysia

Keith Nuthall
CHINA has sought to allay fears that it is dragging its feet over the implementation of liberalisation commitments it made when it was admitted into the World Trade Organisation. It has released explanatory notes to the European Union and Canada, who have raised concerns over the opening of textile import quotas.…

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 MARK ROWE
THE ENGINEERING and power group Malaysia Mining Corp is to buy a US$ 505 million stake in Tanjung Pelepas, Malaysia’s newest port. The company told the Malaysian stock market last Tuesday that it had purchased a 50.1 per cent holding in the country’s newest port in Tanjung Pelepas, in a move designed to expand its infrastructure business.…

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 MARK ROWE
MALAYSIA Mining Corp, (MMC), is to pay US$505 million, (Pounds 360 million/Malaysian ringit 1.9 billion), to purchase a majority stake in Malaysia’s newest port. The 50.1 per cent stake in the Tanjung Pelepas container port is a further sign that the power and engineering group is seeking to diversify its portfolio and reduce its reliance on the mining sector.…

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.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMNAYAKE
THE SRI Lanka government is considering proposals to set up a series of power plants fuelled by natural gas, with companies from Australia, the Middle East and Malaysia are among those making proposals to Columbo. Ministers have highlighted plans for an Australian company to install three 350MW natural gas power plants over nine years.…