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a vehicle that takes up no road space

You did nOt sEE what yOu saw ?

KiLrOy ( Date: 20-Aug-2010 00:49) Posted:

Think again. Your three lanes road will now be 2 lane road. You will think they will create an extra lane just for this? I dont think so. Remember how they created the bus lane? Did they use the existing road lane for bus lane OR they removed the pavement and space to create the bus lane?

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Thursday: 19 AUGUST 2010 CLOSING

RM8.07 +RM0.10

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M’sian economy soars

KUALA LUMPUR

Gross domestic product increased 8.9 per cent in the three months through June from a year earlier, after expanding 10.1 per cent in the first quarter, the central bank said yesterday.

Growth may exceed 6 per cent this year, Bank Negara Governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz said.

Malaysia’s central bank has raised interest rates three times this year and policymakers will deliberate in two weeks if the economy is strong enough to withstand higher borrowing costs as threats to the world recovery grow.

Dr Zeti said the second quarter growth was “driven by sustained expansion in domestic demand and continued robust growth in external demand”.

She said the stronger domestic demand was due to higher private and public sector spending, while the expansion in external demand spurred domestic production.

The economy’s expansion has boosted the Malaysian ringgit, spurring the currency to a gain of 8.5 per cent against the US dollar and 21 per cent against the euro this year, the best performance in Asia excluding Japan.

The FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI Index gained for a fourth day yesterday and has added 8.9 per cent this year.

Economists are divided on whether Bank Negara will raise rates this year after leading most Asian central banks in increasing borrowing costs.

Dr Zeti, who raised the benchmark rate to 2.75 per cent last month, said “the rates currently in place now are consistent and appropriate to the outlook for growth and inflation”.

Malaysia’s policymakers will meet on Sept 2 to decide on rates.

Inflation climbed last month to 1.9 per cent, the highest in 14 months, a report from the Statistics Department showed.

“It’s going to be a close call but we are leaning on one more rate hike” next month, said Mr Enrico Tanuwidjaja, an economist at OSK-DMG Group in Singapore. “Even at 3 per cent, we don’t see that as a tightening measure but the end of normalisation. We think it is consistent with the growth outlook and inflation wouldn’t be a threat.”

— The Malaysian economy grew near the fastest pace in a decade last quarter, an expansion that may prompt Bank Negara, the central bank, to consider increasing interest rates further as inflation accelerates.Agencies

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BHP in hostile takeover bid for Potash
Miner BHP Billiton has launched a hostile takeover bid for Potash Corp after the Canadian firm rejected the miner's US $38.5 billion ($52 billion) all-cash offer as “grossly inadequate”.
BHP is offering US $130 a share to Potash shareholders, describing that as a 20-per-cent premium to the closing price on Aug 11 — the day before BHP's first approach to Potash.

The bid raises the ante for agribusiness firms trying to lock in ownership of fertiliser supplies before an expected rebound in crop production.

AP

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Maersk raises full-year earnings forecast

COPENHAGEN

Net income in the first six months of the year was 13.4 billion kroner ($3.1 billion) compared with a 3.67 billion-kroner loss a year earlier, the company said yesterday. Sales rose 20 per cent to 154 billion kroner.

Maersk is recovering from its first annual loss in at least half a century after the shipping market contracted last year for the first time since containers became the world’s standard means of carrying freight in the ’70s.

Maersk said that net income before minority interests this year will exceed US$4 billion ($5.4 billion).

“The strong momentum of the container-shipping industry helped freight rates to rise sharply in the second quarter,” said Mr Bertrand Kuentzler, an analyst at ING Commercial Banking in Brussels.

— A P Moeller-Maersk, the owner of the world’s largest container-shipping line, raised its full-year earnings forecast after increases in freight rates and global trade helped the company restore first-half profit.BLOOMBERG

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Genting dividends in two to three years if ...

Jo-ann Huang

joannhuang@mediacorp.com.sg

SINGAPORE

And despite that caution, Genting shareholders told MediaCorp at an extraordinary general meeting yesterday that they remain confident the firm is on track to repay its massive debt.

It posted a hefty net profit of $397 million in the quarter ended June — overturning a $51 million loss in the previous year.

But Genting remains unable to declare any cash dividends as it is tied to a loan structure which restricts the firm from paying any dividends until next year or after the loan has been fully paid off.

Genting was responding to some of the 1,000 shareholders that attended the meeting, who had asked why the company had kept a zero-dividend policy since its listing in 2005.

On the other hand, some shareholders told MediaCorp they are investing in Genting for the long-term and are hopeful they will see returns in due time.

“By not paying dividends, the funds remain in the company.

They can be used to repay loans or finance any capital expenditure, or used as loan repayment,” said shareholder Horace Tan.

The S$4.2-billion loan was secured in Feb 2008 and funded about 60 per cent of the development of Resorts World Sentosa.

At the same time, shareholders have approved the company’s proposed divestment of its British operations. Genting UK will be handed over to Genting Malaysia for about £340 million (some $688 million at the time).

This is far less than the original purchase price of £626 million when Genting Malaysia bought British casino operators Stanley Leisure in 2006 and renamed it Genting UK.

Genting UK posted losses to the tune of £184.6 million for the three months ended March 31.

Genting Singapore’s share price rose three cents or two per cent yesterday to close at $1.55.— Genting Singapore shareholders can look forward to cash dividends in two to three years time, provided the company remains profitable and has paid off its $4.2-billion debt.

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CHINA STRADDLING BUS

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The STRADDLING BUS that could fix China’s traffic woes

HONG KONG

Try designing a vehicle that takes up no road space. And make it partly solar- powered.

A company in the southern Chinese town of Shenzhen has done just that. To address the country’s problems with traffic and air quality, Shenzhen Huashi Future Parking Equipment has developed a decidedly odd-looking, extra-wide and extra-tall vehicle that can carry up to 1,200 passengers.

Though it is dubbed the “straddling bus” (picture), Huashi’s invention resembles a train in many respects, but it requires neither elevated tracks nor extensive tunnelling. Its passenger compartment spans the width of two traffic lanes and sits high above the road surface, thanks to a pair of fence-like stilts that leave the road clear for ordinary cars to pass underneath.

It runs along a fixed route.

Huashi’s outsize invention, 6m wide, is to be powered by a combination of municipal electricity and solar power derived from panels mounted on the roofs of the vehicles and at bus stops.

A pilot project for the vehicle is in the works in Beijing and several other Chinese cities have shown interest.

The company says the vehicle, which will travel at an average speed of 40km an hour, could reduce traffic jams by 25 per cent to 30 per cent on main routes.

The Straddling Bus could replace up to 40 conventional buses, potentially saving the 860 tonnes of fuel that 40 buses would consume annually and preventing 2,640 tonnes of carbon emissions, said Mr Youzhou Song, the vehicle’s designer.

The cost of construction — 50 million yuan ($10 million) for one bus and about 40.2km of route facilities — is roughly one-tenth what it costs to build a subway of the same length, he said.— What do you do if your roads are congested and polluted?

THE NEW YORK TIMES

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The STRADDLING BUS that could fix China’s traffic woes

HONG KONG

Try designing a vehicle that takes up no road space. And make it partly solar- powered.

A company in the southern Chinese town of Shenzhen has done just that. To address the country’s problems with traffic and air quality, Shenzhen Huashi Future Parking Equipment has developed a decidedly odd-looking, extra-wide and extra-tall vehicle that can carry up to 1,200 passengers.

Though it is dubbed the “straddling bus” (picture), Huashi’s invention resembles a train in many respects, but it requires neither elevated tracks nor extensive tunnelling. Its passenger compartment spans the width of two traffic lanes and sits high above the road surface, thanks to a pair of fence-like stilts that leave the road clear for ordinary cars to pass underneath.

It runs along a fixed route.

Huashi’s outsize invention, 6m wide, is to be powered by a combination of municipal electricity and solar power derived from panels mounted on the roofs of the vehicles and at bus stops.

A pilot project for the vehicle is in the works in Beijing and several other Chinese cities have shown interest.

The company says the vehicle, which will travel at an average speed of 40km an hour, could reduce traffic jams by 25 per cent to 30 per cent on main routes.

The Straddling Bus could replace up to 40 conventional buses, potentially saving the 860 tonnes of fuel that 40 buses would consume annually and preventing 2,640 tonnes of carbon emissions, said Mr Youzhou Song, the vehicle’s designer.

The cost of construction — 50 million yuan ($10 million) for one bus and about 40.2km of route facilities — is roughly one-tenth what it costs to build a subway of the same length, he said.— What do you do if your roads are congested and polluted?

THE NEW YORK TIMES

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It was not suicide, she says

Thai expert convinced political aide did not jump but does not assert it is homicide

KUALA LUMPUR

Dr Porntip testified at an inquest into Teoh’s death that the absence of fractures to both wrists and one ankle, which would indicate an attempt to break the fall, suggested Mr Teoh may not have been conscious when he plunged from the building.

There were also injuries to the neck that she believed could not have been caused by a fall and which suggested that the flow of oxygen to his brain was interrupted for several minutes before his death.

Dr Porntip declined, however, to repeat her previous assertion that Mr Teoh’s death was 80 per cent a homicide.

Mr Teoh’s body was found in July last year beneath the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) tower, where he had been questioned into the early hours as part of a probe into the opposition-led government of Selangor state.

Dr Porntip faced relentless questioning about her qualifications by lawyers from the MACC following her testimony.

When lawyer Razak Musa raised questions about her credibility, the pathologist replied: “You have to understand. I work for the rights of the dead, not the Selangor government.”

The same lawyer also suggested she was attacking the MACC with her testimony, which led her to tell the court that her university was among the top five in Asia.

Dr Porntip’s testimony came just days after a purported “suicide note” came to light more than a year after Mr Teoh’s demise.

The Attorney General’s office said the police investigating officer who found the note explained he did not realise at first its significance because it was partly written in Chinese characters.

The Bar Council has called for a Royal Commission of Enquiry into the death, saying that “the suppression of evidence, particularly in such a high-profile matter, is disturbing, regardless of the reason”.

AGENCIES— Renowned Thai pathologist Porntip Rojanasunan told the Coroner’s Court yesterday she was sure that Malaysian political aide Teoh Beng Hock, who plunged to his death from the offices of the anti-corruption watchdog, did not commit suicide.

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China swallows Obama’s stimulus for the US

The global economy is like Fried ice- cream:BLOOMBERG

The writer is an independent economist based in Shanghai and was formerly Morgan Stanley’s chief economist for the Asia-Pacific region. The opinions expressed are his own.

If you don’t act FAST, it turns into a mess.

American pundits, Nobel laureates included, are predicting Japan-style deflation for the United States and Europe. They are urging the Federal Reserve to pursue another round of quantitative easing to stop the onset of an Ice Age for Western economies. The Fed didn’t oblige at its last meeting but it threw a bone to the deflation crowd by promising not to pull money out of its previous round of asset purchases to stimulate a recovery.

On the other side of the world, consumer prices are surging. Emerging markets as a whole now have an inflation rate of more than 5 per cent. India is registering price increases of more than 13 per cent. China’s are more than 3 per cent. But it surely feels a lot higher for average Chinese.

Much of the “heat” comes from the property market in emerging markets. Million-dollar flats in Mumbai have panoramic views of the city’s slums. Hong Kong’s real estate prices have almost reclaimed their 1997 peak, though the economy has barely grown since then in per-capita terms. Overpaid bankers who pay 15 per cent income tax in Hong Kong are stretched to buy Beijing or Shanghai properties.

The emerging markets are on FIRE.

Deflation prophets in the West are in for a rude awakening. Eastern fire will turn Western ice into a mess, and 2012 looks like it will be the year of melting. The fuel for the fire is coming from deflation-fighting stimulus programmes, such as that of US President Barack Obama.

Stimulus is prescribed as a panacea for recession. In today’s global economy, it isn’t effective in the best of circumstances and is outright wrong for what ails the West now.

Trade and foreign direct investment total half of global GDP. Multinational corporations drive both. They shop around the world for the lowest-cost production centres and ship goods to wherever the demand is.

Demand and supply are dislocated.

So when a government introduces stimulus, the initial increase in demand doesn’t necessarily boost local supply. More importantly, if multinationals decide to invest somewhere else, there wouldn’t be an increase in jobs to sustain the growth in demand beyond the stimulus.

Just as water flows down, stimulus affects low-cost economies more, wherever it is initiated. As the West pours money into the global economy through large fiscal deficits or central banks expanding balance sheets, the emerging economies are drowning in excess liquidity. Everything is turning red-hot.

How will this all end?

Ideally, before inflation takes hold in the US and Europe, the costs in emerging economies will rise high enough for multinationals to invest and hire in the West again. I wouldn’t count on that.

The average wage in the developed economies is 10 times that in emerging markets.

There are five people in the latter for one in the former.

A more likely scenario is that the West will have to stop stimulus programmes when inflation spreads to it from the emerging economies. The most immediate channel is through rising commodity prices. It’s a tax on the West to benefit emerging economies that produce raw materials. That’s the irony:

The stimulus in the West can immediately bring harm to itself. It’s also the magic of globalisation.

The prices of imported consumer goods will rise with increasing labour costs in emerging economies. China’s nominal GDP is growing at about 20 per cent per year. The odds are that its labour costs will surge as its worker shortage bites.

Lastly, labour in the West will demand wage increases to compensate for current and future inflation. One may argue that high unemployment rates will keep wages in check. THINK agaIn. In the 1970s, the US suffered a wage-price surge even with high unemployment because workers saw through the Fed’s “growth first and inflation be damned” intention.

In 2012, the Fed will run out of excuses not to raise interest rates.

As the excess liquidity in the global economy will be gigantic by then, the tightening will probably trigger a global crisis as asset bubbles burst.

What really ails the West is declining competitiveness.

Globalisation is pitting the Wangs in China or Gandhis in India against the Smiths in the US or Gonzalezes in Spain.

Multinationals decide on whom to hire.

The Wangs and the Gandhis offer productivity but have little money. So they are willing to accept low wages to accumulate wealth.

The Smiths and the Gonzalezes have wealth and won’t accept Third World wages. When their governments give them money to spend, their demand just makes the Wangs and the Gandhis richer and themselves poorer with rising national debt.

The West must wait for the Wangs and the Gandhis to become rich enough so that they demand Western wages and spend like the Smiths and Gonzalezes. It is a long and painful process for the West. And there is no way around it.