by Bernard Cheah

GEORGE TOWN (Jan 20, 2011): Penang had the highest amount of investments in the country last year due to the good foundation laid by the state authorities 40 years ago.
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon said the RM12 billion in investments was a result of good infrastructure, materials and components, which were provided over the last 40 years.

“This was all done during the tenure of former Penang Chief Minister, the late Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu,” he said.

Koh, who is also Gerakan president and former Penang Chief Minister, pointed out that from the RM12 billion, about RM9 billion are from expansion of factories and plants from existing foreign companies here.

“Only RM3 billion are new (investments). And these investments were brought in with the cooperation of the Malaysian International Development Agency (MIDA) and the state government,” he said, adding that the state government will continue to work with the federal government in this aspect.

Koh added that overall, 2010 has been a good year for Malaysia, and hopes that with the foundation the state has, it will be able to push itself forward.

He said this after visiting some thaneer panthal (refreshment stalls) along Jalan Utama here during the Thaipusam celebration this morning.

Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng announced yesterday that based on the figures by MIDA, the state attracted the highest amount of investments in the country last year, recording a total RM12.238 billion, a jump of 465% compared to the total investments in 2009.

On another matter, Koh denied that Penang had been sidelined from the developments carried out by the Federal Government.

“We have the second Penang Bridge, the continuous expansion of the Penang International Airport, Penang Port as well as the Mengkuang Dam. All this big projects are still going on,” he said, adding that the federal government has not abandoned Penang or its people.

Under the 12 National Key Economic Areas, the electronic industry is one of them, in which Penang, Sg Petani and Kulim in Kedah and North Perak are part of the initiative,” he said.

“We are trying to attract investments through the federal government and the state government should continue to work with us for the benefit of all Malaysians,” Koh added.

Lim was reported saying that not a single project under the Economic Transformation Plan (ETP) was carried out in Penang

Himanshu Bhatt

GEORGE TOWN (Dec 20, 2010): The federal government is allocating funds for Penang to help make the state a regional economic hub which would benefit the country as a whole, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak said.

Citing the RM250 million upgrading project for the Penang International Airport as an example, Najib said the federal authorities were setting aside money from a “national perspective” and in line with plans to develop the Northern Corridor Economic Region (NCER).

“The federal government’s goal for Penang is to make it the preferred hub in the region,” he said.

“Ten major infrastructure projects have been identified, including expansions of the airport, Penang Port and Penang Bridge; construction of a second bridge; and the creation of a Multimedia Super Corridor in Penang.

“These initiatives will not only facilitate economic activity, but also support our national objective to increase tourism revenue from RM53 billion in 2009 to RM168 billion by 2020,” Najib said in his speech while officiating at the ground-breaking of the airport’s passenger terminal expansion here.

Also present were Transport Minister Datuk Seri Kong Cho Ha, Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, as well as Ministers in the PM’s Department Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon and Tan Sri Nor Mohamad Yakcop.

Funding for the project came from the government’s RM6 billion economic stimulus package.

“This RM250 million investment in the airport’s expansion will increase passenger capacity, improve facilities and strengthen security,” Najib said.

“It will also enhance the airport’s ambience, providing a higher comfort level to airlines and passengers alike, and offering a better selection of retail outlets,” he added.

Najib noted that the stimulus package offered many benefits to the aviation sector, including two years of landing rebates for airlines to support their business recovery, restore confidence and increase the rate of air traffic into Malaysian airports.

Najib said he also anticipated the need to upgrade the airport’s cargo terminal to serve increased industrial activity here.

He noted that the airport now handles more than 30% of Malaysia’s manufacturing exports and is the second busiest entry point for international visitors to the country.

Stressing that investing in infrastructure was a key pillar to sustaining Malaysia’s economic growth in the long term, he said: “I am confident that the airport’s upgrading will allow Penang to further develop in economic growth.”

Please feel free to leave your online tributes to Dr Lim Chong Eu here. We as Penangites owe alot to the progress of our state to him. We hope this page will acquire his virtual tributes that will stay in Cyber Space for along time to come.

GEORGE TOWN: Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu, the man behind Penang’s growth from a little-known island state to a model of economic success, has died. He was 91.
The charismatic politician was widely regarded as a father figure who transcended ethnic boundaries and religious or cultural differences.

His death closes an important chapter in Penang’s history as Dr Lim was instrumental in Penang’s economic development when he was chief minister.

Although he retired from politics 20 years ago, his name still echoes in Penang, a state he gave a major makeover during his many years as chief minister.

He transformed Penang from an economy that depended solely on its free-port status to an urbanised and industrialised state good enough to be known as the Silicon Valley of Malaysia.

Dr Lim gave Penang factories, brought in multinationals and set up the state government’s investment arm, Penang Development Corporation.

It was his hard work and the sound foundation he laid all those years that the
big names people see today — such as Intel, Motorola, Advanced Micro Devices,
Robert Bosch, Seagate and Renesas Semiconductor — are in the Bayan Lepas
industrial zone.

Dr Lim also gave the state a structure most Penangites see every day: the state’s first skyscraper, the 65-storey Kompleks Tun Abdul Razak (Komtar).

In its heyday, Komtar was the tallest building in Asia, standing at 232m when it was completed in 1986.

It was also during his tenure as chief minister that the multi-million ringgit Komtar project began to take shape as an integrated development, comprising business, retail space and offices to provide a centralised administrative
and civic centre for Penangites.

Once completed, all local, state and Federal Government departments in Penang were place under the same roof in Komtar.

Dr Lim was Penang’s longest-serving chief minister, leading the state and shaping its identity for 21 years from 1969 to 1990.

He was indeed a towering politician and leader who had braved through stormy weather for five terms.

Born on May 28, 1919, in Penang, Dr Lim was educated at Penang Free School, where he was King’s Scholar in 1937.

He later studied at Edinburgh University in Scotland, where he obtained his degrees in medicine and surgery in 1944.

His colourful political journey began after his return to Penang. He was appointed to the Penang Local Council in 1951 and then the federal legislature in 1955, representing Penang and as chief whip for the Alliance.

During that time, he was also a practising medical doctor, serving in the Malayan Auxiliary Air Force from 1951 until 1954 before going into private practice.

At age 39, Dr Lim, who was with MCA at the time, challenged incumbent Tun Tan Cheng Lock for the party presidency and won with only a 22-vote majority in 1958.

He called an extraordinary general meeting to amend the party constitution, which led to objections and a split in the party.

During his one-year tenure as MCA president, he and then prime minister Tunku Abdul Rahman also had political differences.

The tensions escalated on the eve of the 1959 general election when Dr Lim demanded 40 parliamentary seats and that Mandarin be made an official language.

When he rejected Tunku Abdul Rahman’s allocation of 31 seats instead of the original 28, the relationship between the two worsened.

In December 1960, he left MCA and two years later, formed the United Democratic Party. In 1968, he became one of the founding members of Gerakan, which started out as an opposition party against the ruling Alliance.

Despite being a new party, Gerakan captured Penang in the 1969 general election, making Dr Lim, who was the party’s president, the new chief minister, succeeding Tan Sri Wong Pow Nee.

Life after that was not a honeymoon and Dr Lim was forced to make a decision that changed Gerakan’s political direction and Penang’s fate as an opposition state.

In 1973, Gerakan joined the newly set up Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition, becoming a partner to former political rivals MCA, Umno and MIC.

Under his leadership, the party remained in power in Penang until he retired from politics in 1990 after the general election that year, following his loss in Padang Kota, a state constituency he had defended since 1969.

He was succeeded by his former political secretary, Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon, who was Penang’s third chief minister until March 2008.

Those who had met Dr Lim and knew him would likely remember him as a person who was serious with his job, straight to the point, rarely showed his emotions in public and so sharp that he could put people with specialised degrees to shame.

He was fondly known as the “old man” by members of his party, a reference used in grudging respect for what he had accomplished for Penang, where he had spent many years polishing the “pearl” so it would continue to shine after him.

Dr Lim had always known that the future was going to be a challenging one for Malaysians.

In his speech on national integration at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) in 1995, he described himself as an “old bee that lingered in an environment best to build his hive”, but in the next 25 years as the nation moved towards 2020, the people would become very “busy bees”.

With just that, Malaysians would be successful in the future, he had said.

After his retirement, Dr Lim concentrated on business and was chairman and adviser to several large corporations.

He was pro-chancellor of USM from 1994 to 1999, and was conferred an Honorary Doctorate of Law.

He was also conferred the “Doctorate in Honoris Causa” by his alma mater, Edinburgh University, and even received a medal from Emperor Akihito of Japan.

In 2007, when Gerakan opened its Wawasan Open University, Dr Lim was named founding chancellor.

He is survived by his wife Toh Puan Goh Sing Yeng and four children: Chien Aun, Chien Cheng, Pao Lin and Pao Yen.

GEORGE TOWN: Consumer product retailers and manufacturers in the country are expecting a strong first quarter but are, however, cautious about the second quarter.

Pensonic Holdings Bhd managing director Dixon Chew told StarBiz that the group’s domestic sales grew about 5% in the second half of 2009 versus a year earlier.

“Sales of consumer electrical and electronics products did well during the festive holidays because of the year-end bonuses. Consumers were more willing to spend due to their perception of an improving economic environment,” he said.

Pensonic’s domestic sales division was expected to perform better in the first quarter of 2010 compared with the year-ago period, he said.

However, due to the prevailing uncertainties in the global economy, the company was cautious on the second quarter, he said.

“In the US, unemployment still stands at double digit, which means the consumption power is still weak, and our manufacturing sector will be affected eventually,” Chew said. “We are cautious about undertaking expansion plans in the second half.”

On the implementation of the Asean Free Trade Area (Afta) Plus China on Jan 1, Chew said the group could now increase imports of China-made finished and semi-finished raw materials without duties for the group to do manufacturing and assembly work in Penang.

Ban Hin Bee Sdn Bhd general manager Wilson Yeoh said the company had been enjoying double-digit growth for the past two months.

“Manufacturers of our brand-name products all over Asia did not anticipate such high volume of orders during the Christmas, New Year and Chinese New Year holidays.

“The manufacturers in the Asia-Pacific were cautious when they forecast the demand for consumer household items in Malaysia for the last quarter of 2009 and the first quarter of 2010, as they were sceptical about domestic spending power.

“For the first quarter, we expect strong growth over the previous year’s corresponding quarter.

“The second quarter is expected to be slower than the first, and we anticipate sales to pick up again in the third quarter,” he said.

Ban Hin Bee is setting up two more outlets in the northern region in the second half of 2010. The leading retailer in the north has nine outlets in the country – eight in Penang and one in Kuala Lumpur.

Penang-based Star Electronics Sales & Services expects about 10% growth in sales year-on-year in the first quarter of 2010, while viewing the second quarter with caution.

“For the last two consecutive quarters of 2009, our sales had been growing at about 10% per quarter, compared with the respective quarters of 2008,” said managing director Joseph Hon. “However, there is little visibility for the second quarter.”

“We do have plans to establish seven more outlets in the Klang Valley and Selangor, as part of our strategy to tap the market in the central region.

“But this expansion exercise will be implemented only if the domestic economy continued to remain stable,” he said.

The company currently has 18 outlets in Penang and Kedah.

Meanwhile, Courts country director Chris Yong told StarBiz that the company was planning store expansion at eight locations nationwide this year after it increased its market share of consumer and digital electronics by about 8% in 2009, even as the market shrunk by 4%, due to the weak consumer sentiment during the recession.

“We have also identified 10 stores for major refurbishment, while three other stores are being planned for relocation,” he said.

Yong said that based on Courts steady market share, the company was optimistic retail consumer confidence would continue to recover.

Meanwhile, OCBC Bank (Malaysia) Bhd retail commercial banking head Wong Chee Seng said that compared with the sluggish January 2009, loan applications were higher last month.

“As the economic strength gathers momentum, we foresee greater demand for loans in the first quarter of this year.

“Aligned to the gradual improvement in domestic demand, we are also seeing improvements in loan drawdowns, by as much as 50% due to higher approval volume and larger deal sizes,” he said.

GEORGE TOWN: The improvement in orders seen in the electronics sector in Penang in the second quarter is expected to expand into the third and fourth quarters. This is a departure from four months ago when the state’s electronics companies had been mixed in their forecasts for the second half outlook when they were interviewed. The increased orders seen in the second quarter came largely from South Korea, Japan, the US, and European multinational corporations (MNCs).

This trend is expected to improve in the third and fourth quarters, as distributors and wholesalers are now stocking up to prepare for the festive season sales in the fourth quarter, according to industry players.

P.I.E. Industrial Bhd managing director Alvin Mui said the third and fourth quarters were traditionally the best quarters of the year.

“We anticipate that demand will continue to increase for the rest of the year, although it will not be able to match the result of last year’s corresponding period,” he said.

For the second quarter, P.I.E. Industrial posted RM8.5mil in pretax profit on the back of RM52mil in revenue, compared to RM6.9mil and RM46mil achieved respectively in the first quarter.

“The increase in demand is due to the higher orders from most of our existing customers in the US and Europe,” Mui said. “The electronic manufacturing services business has become more competitive during this economic downturn.”

Eng Teknologi Holdings Bhd chief executive officer Datuk Y.K. Teh said the global demand for hard disk drives was expected to grow by about 6.6% to 140 million units in the third quarter compared to the second quarter, according to US-based research firm TrendFocus.

“In the fourth quarter, the global demand is expected to increase by 3.8% to 145 million units over the third quarter,” he said. “The group is spending RM15mil to expand its hard disk drive operations in the country and overseas this year.”

GUH Holdings Bhd managing director Datuk Kenneth H’ng said the company’s month-to-month sales for the third quarter so far were as good as the corresponding period last year, just before the crisis started in October 2008.

“For such challenging economic times, we are not disappointed at all,” he said. “In fact, due to the growth in the second quarter, we are going to spend RM15mil to expand the production capacity of our plants in Penang and Suzhou for the second half of 2009.”

In the second quarter, the group posted RM20mil in pretax profit on the back of RM74mil in revenue, compared to RM4.7mil in pretax profit and RM53mil in revenue achieved in the first quarter of 2009.

For the first six months of 2009, the group generated RM25mil in pretax profit on the back of RM127mil in revenue, compared to RM2mil in pretax profit and RM133mil in revenue a year earlier.

“The orders for our printed circuit boards (PCBs) products in the second quarter, secured by the group’s operations in Suzhou, came largely from Korean and Japanese MNCs operating in China,” H’ng noted.

Globetronics Technology Bhd chief financial officer Ng Kok Choon said the group’s business for the third quarter was expected to improve compared to the second quarter.

“We have increased monthly production by 10% to about 30 million units of integrated circuits and light emitting diode dies for the third quarter,” he said. “The group also expects to receive more orders from customers in Japan, the US and China.”

Ng said Globetronics’ overseas sales “should comprise about 35% of the group’s revenue for 2009, representing a 10% to 15% increase from last year’s overseas contribution” with the MNCs and local factories in the country contributing the remainder.

For the second quarter ended June 30, Globetronics’ sales revenue improved by 38% to RM52mil from RM38mil, while its profit after tax improved 18-fold from RM200,000 to RM3.6mil.

“The improvement has to do with the customers’ replenishment programme to stock up the inventory,” he said.

PENANG, Aug 7 (Bernama) — The increase in business orders in the state’s manufacturing industry has helped to reduce the number of retrenchments, state Labour Department Director Hoe Lean Fatt said Friday.

He said the number of retrenchments so far this year had dropped to 2,663 from 3,011 for the corresponding period last year due to more business orders and the need for more employees in the manufacturing industry.

The number of job replacements was higher than retrenchments, meaning that most employees who were laid off had managed to find new jobs, he told reporters after launching the state-level Job Replacement Programme here.

Hoe also said that the job-matching Programme which would be held at Dewan Millennium, Kepala Batas, on Aug 15, would offer 3,000 vacancies from 60 companies in the manufacturing and service sectors.