Foreign Shareholdings in Malaysian Companies

Yet again, another issue about the foreign shareholdings in Malaysian companies. Bureaucracy not related to business, in certain extent, did slow down foreign direct investment in Malaysia.

In certain cases where foreigners wanted to increase their shareholdings in Malaysian companies beyond 49%, such approvals could be only be solved when a ruling states that a company established prior to 21 May 2003 could not have this liberty, is removed.

Different government agencies have different agendas, namely the Foreign Investment Committee and Ministry of International Trade and Industry. How in the world are the foreigners going to set up a business within a short period and thus bringing in foreign investment with the provision of employment opportunities for Malaysians. Malaysia is just not investment friendly compared with Hong Kong and Singapore.

The British Malaysian Chamber of Commerce has to step in in requesting that all Malaysian companies could have a 70% equities held by foreigners while observing a minimum 30% bumiputera equity (another NEP ruling?).

I have a previous contact from France that wanted to set up a food business in Kuala Lumpur. His business was doing well in France and thought of extending his ideas here. After going through so many process which were going at snail's pace and unreasonable requirements, he gave up. He said that although the government promoted foreign direct investment but respective government agencies do not reflect the same ideology at all.

He did say "Why must I give away 30% of my business to someone I do not know?"
This scenario is similar to the ones in the Maybank and freight forwarders cases.
Tags: Business, Politics, Bumiputera Equity, Foreign Equity, Foreign Investment Committee, Ministry of International Trade and Industry, British Malaysian Chamber of Commerce, New Economic Policy, NEP

Updated Skywards Account

On 6 Aug, I blogged about me being Cheated Off in Skywards Miles. To my surprise, I received an email yesterday morning (9 Aug) from Skywards stating that my Skywards account has been updated and all those missing miles have been credited into my account.

Extract of their email to me:-
"We are sorry to learn of your disappointment through your blog spot at Life's Happenings - http://johnny-ong.blogspot.com/ with regards to crediting of flights to your Skywards account."

In the first place, I didn't expect any returns from my blog posting as it was to vent my frustration on a company that kept saying their service is excellent. You mean my blog was so effective and what I have written had reached Skywards office in Dubai and they took immediate action on it. No wonder certain politicians were not happy with those Monkey Bloggers. It seems that blogs are playing a major impact in everyone's life.

Kudos to Skywards for rectifying my account. You'll have gotten the confidence of another customer. Now what else can I blog about???
Tags: Skywards, Blog, Dubai

Horrible Crash at Jln Tun Razak

* Latest update - On Friday, Star newspaper published about this accident. It seems that 3 persons out of 4 in the car died due to the impact. Remaining guy was hospitalised with serious leg injuries. It was a Mercedes S350L and the car belonged to the driver's company - which rents out limousines. The newspaper reported wrongly on the time of the accident as it happened during the wee hours of Thursday morning.
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I left home at about 7.45am this morning and it would be just nice timing with me arriving at the office building around 8.20-8.25am. But it was not to be today.

As I'm a frequent user of the Smart Tunnel, the long queue for the Jalan Tun Razak exit will usually start at the emergency exit no. 7 area (inside the tunnel) but today, the jam started at emergency exit no. 12. That was bad.

Not only my lane but the lane heading towards to Jalan Bukit Bintang was equally bad. At times, vehicles on both lanes stopped literally. This was really unusual. Not long after that, I saw a tow-truck squeezing its way through the traffic at the left side (emergency lane) of the tunnel. Awwwwwwww, no wonder, accident right ahead. By the time I exit the tunnel, I didn't notice any cars or car parts on the road (maybe I was cock-eyed) but the left lane turning to Jln Bukit Bintang was still bad with cars lining up to exit.

I was inside the tunnel for a good 30 minutes. Normally, it would take me 30 minutes to reach office. Now, the Smart Tunnel's operator did mention that if they want to divert certain flood water into the tunnel, they could do it within 10 minutes. 10 minutes - the time required to clear the tunnel from any traffic.

Ok, I was stucked inside the tunnel for 30 minutes and reason was because the traffic at the end of the tunnel was not moving. What if they intend to flood the tunnel and they can't clear the traffic on time as was this morning's situation. My colleague joked about it stating that I didn't read their small terms and conditions. That scenario would have worked if my car was the only car and no traffic jam at the end of the tunnel. True enough.

After going through a snail pace, I got stucked under another short tunnel right below the Jalan Tun Razak/Jalan Bukit Bintang junction (in front of RHB Bank). It was moving centimetre by centimetre. Slowly manouvering my way to the left later on to squeeze into the road heading to Jln Tun Razak/Jalan Ampang junction. The moment I arrived at the Tabung Haji building, traffic was clear all the way. What happened behind me????

Soon, I received an email stating that a horrifying accident happened right in front of the newly occupied Dua Residency condo (2 white buildings in the centre of the picture). A high-end Mercedes actually smacked right into a tree before flinging itself onto Dua Residency's security post at the entrance.
A colleague who passed by the building at 6.15am had already noticed the place of accident but the police only came to remove the car at around 8am.

Some colleagues only managed to come into office after 9am due to that. The Smart Tunnel was also closed to traffic after I have entered it as a colleague of mine was turned away at a later time.











Tags: Dua Residency, Jalan Tun Razak, Jalan Bukit Bintang, Smart Tunnel, Mercedes, Accident

How Rich Are You Today?

I'm sure many readers have known that the World's Richest Person has changed hands where Mexican Carlos Slim has overtaken American Bill Gates.

Listing for multi-millionaires and billionaires are being published annually to record the rich people's monies and assets.

But what about people like you and me? Where do you stand in the listing?

For once, you can find out. Goto Global Rich List and key in your annual income (choose your currency) and then click 'Show me the money!' button and you'll see your world ranking soon and in which top percentage too!
Tags: Global Rich List, Millionaires, Billionaires, Rich, Bill Gates, Carlos Slim

Flat-fooded

A man returns from Africa and is feeling very ill. He goes to see his doctor, and is immediately rushed to the hospital, to undergo a barrage of tests.

The man wakes up after the tests in a private room at the hospital. Suddenly, the phone by his bed rings.

“This is your doctor. We’ve had the results back from your tests and we’ve found you have an extremely nasty virus, which is extremely contagious!”

“Oh my gosh” cried the man, “What are you going to do, doctor?”

“Well, we’re going to put you on a diet of pizzas, pancakes, and pita bread.”

“Will that cure me?” asked the man.

The doctor replied, “Well no, but it’s the only food we can get under the door.”
Tags: Jokes, Funny, Humour, Doctor, Africa, Virus

Peeping Tom - Part I

When I read the article entitled Peeping Tom Beaten Up in the Star newspaper, it recalled the same scenario at my condo 3 years back.

From my condo (a corner unit), I could see the next block's emergency side staircase. For a few times, I did notice a guy standing at the staircase during night time and could see him staring into the condo unit from the staircase. He would then stare at the open space and stare back at the unit. Now what was he staring at? Due to the weird design of the condo unit, a person could see the common toilet from the emergency staircase. As I'm tall you could see my shoulder area during my shower but for a shorter person you may see the head only.

After ensuring that he was a peeping tom due to his frequency at that spot, I informed few of my neighbours on my floor. My opposite neighbour would also try to catch his misdeeds from his angle. On one fine night, I so happened noticed that he just stepped into his common place. I informed the rest of the neighbouring guys and I grabbed a long steel pipe which I keep in my master bedroom's toilet.

Called 2 other guys from other floors and we met downstairs. We walked one big round exiting from the centre of our block, round the car park and into the lift area of the other block. There were 8 of us and we split into 2 groups. We knew he was at the 3rd/4th floor staircase area. One group came out of the lift at the 3rd floor and my group was at the 4th floor walking towards the staircase door. The moment we opened the door, we couldn't see him and we shouted to the 3rd floor's group who didn't see anyone too. Damn, he escaped!

Another time I saw him (needed to be on guard since he was quite frequent) walking towards our condo block. Informed the rest of the gang and the security too. 2 security guys joined us and we tried tried to corner this peeping tom. Somehow, a neighbour, who was quite desperate to nail this guy walked out to the car park to have a better view at the staircase area. Unfortunately and fortunately, they saw each other. This neighbour was holding a golf club and sounded to one of the security guard who was our block 4th floor staircase. Upon noticing that we were hunting him down. He disappeared. We walked all over the place and guarded around but he was nowhere to be seen.

(to be cont'd.......)
Tags: Peeping Tom, Condo

Two Hunters from Michigan

Even I had Major Disaster and Another Disaster lately, it can't be compared to the one as below:-

This is from a radio program, a true report of an incident in Michigan.

A guy buys a brand new Lincoln Navigator for $42,500 and has $560 monthly payments. He and a friend go duck hunting in winter, and of course all the lakes are frozen. These two guys go out on the lake with the guns, the dog, and of course the new vehicle. They drive out onto the lake ice and get ready.

Now, they want to make some kind of a natural landing area for the ducks, something for the decoys to float on. In order to make a hole large enough to look like something a wandering duck would fly down and land on, it is going to take a little more effort than an ice hole drill.

So, out of the back of the new Navigator comes a stick of dynamite with a short, 40-second fuse. Now these two Rocket Scientists do take into consideration that they want to place the stick of dynamite on the ice at a location far from where they are standing (and the new Navigator), because they don't want to take the risk of slipping on the ice when they run from the burning fuse and possibly go up in smoke with the resulting blast. They light the 40-second fuse and throw the dynamite.

Remember a couple of paragraphs back when I mentioned the vehicle, the guns and the dog? Let's talk about the dog: A highly trained Black Lab used for RETRIEVING. Especially things thrown by the owner.

You guessed it, the dog takes off at a high rate of doggy speed on the ice and captures the stick of dynamite with the burning 40-second fuse about the time it hits the ice. The two men yell, scream, wave their arms and wonder what to do now.

The dog, cheered on, keeps coming. One of the guys grabs the shotgun and shoots the dog. The shotgun is loaded with # 8 buckshot, hardly big enough to stop a Black Lab. The dog stops for a moment, slightly confused, but continues on. Another shot and this time the dog, still standing, becomes really confused and of course terrified, thinking these two geniuses have gone insane.
The dog takes off to find cover, under the brand new Navigator.

----BOOM!----

Dog and Navigator are blown to bits and sink to the bottom of the lake in a very large hole, leaving the two idiots standing there with this "I can't believe this happened" look on their faces.

The insurance company says that sinking a vehicle in a lake by illegal use of explosives is not covered. He still had yet to make the first of those $560 a month payments!

And you thought your day was not going well?
Tags: Michigan, Lincoln Navigator, Duck Hunting, Duck, Black Labrador, Dynamite, Rocket Scientists, Shotgun, Buckshot, Insurance Company