Investors everywhere have been in for a rough ride since last year, and Temasek Holdings is no exception.

The Singapore investment company has suffered its first portfolio decline since the 2009 global financial crisis, pointing to more tough times ahead.

The firm’s net portfolio value fell to US$180 billion (Bt6.3 trillion) for the financial year ended March 31, down from US $197 billion a year ago.

The decline was not surprising – about three-fifths of Temasek’s holdings are tied up in listed assets, which means weak stock markets around the world were a significant drag.

Its one-year total shareholder return came in at a negative 9.02 per cent, also reflecting the share price declines of its listed investments, the firm said last Thursday in its annual review.

It was a volatile year for markets everywhere, particularly in China, which made up a quarter of Temasek’s portfolio as at March 31.

It is possible that this latest set of numbers is just a bump in the road, given Temasek’s long-term investment horizon.

For instance, the share prices of some of its portfolio companies have recovered since March – Singtel shares have risen from US$2.84 at end-March to US$3.08 last Friday.

However, the fact remains that the investment landscape has become tougher and there are more uncertainties ahead.

The global economy never really recovered from the financial crisis and growth has been stuck in the doldrums since.

Central banks all over the world have cut interest rates to rock-bottom levels in a bid to stimulate economies.

In this environment, investors everywhere are finding it difficult to identify good investments.

All in all, the current financial year is likely to be another challenging one for Temasek.

Chief Marketing Officer Tiyah Hj Yunsi said Neogene is working with website designer Auxilium Technologies to put up a website that will feature Brunei’s geological sites and encourage foreign geologists to do their field research here.

“Geologists travel around the world to look at outcrops. These outcrops can give them a real life example of geological process, formations and theories,” she said.

Tiyah recalled a foreign geologist who conducted a field trip to study a mud volcano at the boundary of Limbang and Brunei.

“He’s a lecturer in one of the universities in Thailand. A few years ago, he brought around 10 of his students to look at the outcrops in Berakas beach and along the Subok area,” she said.

Tiyah said developing a geological tour website can also help in boosting the sultanate’s hospitality industry.

She said foreign geologists who bought their tour packages will bring their family members and friends to stay in Brunei’s hotels for few days and visit the country’s tourist spots. To illustrate her point, Tiyah cited a field trip organised by Neogene last May for a group of students and lecturers from the Universiti Malaysia Kelantan (UMK).

“We charged the UMK students for the tours. Since it was their first time visiting Brunei, they wanted to stay in Brunei longer because they wanted to learn more about the sultanate’s culture and this promoted ecotourism,” she said.

She said UMK students stayed in a hotel for a few days and even visited Kg Ayer.

Tiyah said Neogene is currently developing educational tours for students and researchers to promote Brunei’s geological sites including the Sg Akar ancient marine outcrop, Berakas Beach’s river system, Lugu’s fossil hunting and structural system, Ambog Hill, Lubok Pulau and Penanjong Beach’s coastal system.

“The market is already there because there’s a lot of geologist enthusiasts out there,” she said.

Chief Finance Officer Wana Jumat said the website—which will feature details on tour packages, locations, videos and photos—will give more information on Brunei’s geological sites. This won’t only grow the country’s tourism sector but can also develop Brunei’s education and research sector.

“Under Wawasan (Vision) 2035, one of the goals is to improve the education and research (sector). I believe we can contribute a lot to the research (sector) because there will be a lot of professional geologists visiting Brunei to do their research,” Wana said.

Abdul Qawi Hj Abd Karim, founder of Auxilium Technolgies, met with Neogene members last month to discuss about updates on their business.

“Neogene is still finalising everything. They want to feature their clients on the website as (part of) their company’s portfolio,” he said.

At its annual general meeting, National Citizen Bank approved a plan to increase its chartered capital by issuing bonds worth 1 trillion dong (Bt1.6 billion) with covered warrants.

The bonds will have a three-year tenor and a coupon rate of 9.5 per cent.

Covered warrants are issued by financial institutions rather than companies, so no new stock is issued when covered warrants are exercised.

Rather, the warrants are “covered” in that the issuing institution already owns the underlying shares or can somehow acquire them.

Recently Asia Commercial Bank also divulged plans to issue 2 trillion dong worth of bonds for a tenor of five years and floating interest rates matching Vietcombank’s interest rate for 12-month dong deposits.

Vietcombank itself has already outlined a plan to issue bonds together with a private placement of shares to foreign investors.

The banking industry has been facing risks, with many lenders having to struggle with bad debts.

As a result, many lenders find it difficult to persuade people to buy their shares, especially after the central bank prohibited cross-ownership by banks.

Their problems are compounded by the fact that the major shareholders of many banks are state-owned firms, which have been ordered by the government to sell off their stakes to focus on their core businesses.

Analysts said in this scenario the lenders would benefit by issuing bonds since it would prevent their shares from being diluted.

Bond issuance would also help the banks increase their Tier 2 capital, or even Tier 1 capital in the future if they are convertible or bonds with warrants.

Increasing core capital would help the banks expand without falling foul of the Basel norms that mandate the capital adequacy ratio for lenders globally.

Obvious benefit

Another obvious benefit is that the banks can retain the amount raised from a bond issue for a fixed period unlike any deposit and at interest rates not much higher than on deposits.

Most banks now offer interest rates of 6.5-7.5 per cent for 12-month deposits, while bonds usually carry a coupon rate of 8.5-9.5 per cent for terms of three to five years.

But the nature of bond investors has changed somewhat in the last few years.

In the past those who bought banks’ bonds were mainly other banks that wanted to help each other increase their assets and capital. So this was contrived and quite risky.

However, now the buyers are more diverse, and likely include domestic and foreign individuals and organisations.

According to a report from the State Bank of Vietnam’s Credit Department, bank loans grew by 6.8 per cent as of late last month, slightly higher than the 6.4 per cent a year earlier.

Lending in dong increased by 8.1 per cent and accounted for 90.8 per cent of total loans. Loans in foreign currencies declined by 4.6 per cent.

Many analysts blamed the slowdown in foreign currency credit growth on exchange rate risks and low demand.

Telenor Myanmar last week launched a 4G service in Nay Pyi Taw, nearly two months after Ooredoo Myanmar offered the technology in the capital city along with Yangon and Mandalay.

In Southeast Asia and Oceania in 2015, only 5 per cent of all mobile subscriptions were 4G – but the figure is expected to increase to more than 40 per cent by 2021, according to the Ericsson Mobility Report 2016.

“We believe that 4G is now relevant to our mass market with current handset capabilities. In the future, we will introduce other 4G services with high definition of voice and enriched messaging experience,” Petter Furberg, the outgoing chief executive officer of Telenor Myanmar, said.

“To provide high speed 4G services all over the country, Telenor will need more spectrum. Telenor is looking forward to participating in the spectrum auctions planned by the Union Government later this year. Due to explosive growth of data and increasing data demand by the Myanmar people we believe it is urgently required to expand our services to 4G all over Myanmar.”

Telenor claims to be Myanmar’s largest network with more than 5,700 towers and 16 million customers. Over 60 per cent of its customers are data users.

Ooredoo said its penetration rate was 85 per cent by April this year. With an aim to be the best data network in the country, the company has extended its fibre optic network to over 7,700 kilometres.

It plans to lengthen it to approximately 12,000km by the end of this year. According to Ooredoo CEO Rene Meza, to date the company has invested more than US$1.7 billion (Bt60 billion) in Myanmar.

“We continue to increase our investment in Myanmar … We look forward to expanding our network as the government of Myanmar grants more spectrum,” Meza said.

“This is only the beginning. Our service will continue to expand and improve over time. We are ready to invest more, and are looking forward to covering even more customers with faster speed.”

He also promised that 4G ser-|vices would not be more pricey |than 3G. Under a marketing cam-paign, Ooredoo customers can enjoy free calls to people using the same network and Facebook at the super-low price of three kyats (Bt0.09) per megabyte.

The rocketing number of Chinese tourists coming to Vietnam in the first half of the year was putting pressure on the tourism industry, the authority in charge said yesterday, days after several Chinese tour guides were found working illegally in the country.

The number of Chinese tourists visiting the Southeast Asian nation in recent months “soared out of the blue”, said Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) Director-General Nguyen Van Tuan in its half-year review meeting on Friday.

Chinese visitor growth scored soared more than 47.5 per cent from the same period last year.

The latest VNAT report shows more than 1.2 million Chinese tourists visited Vietnam in the first six months of 2016, making up roughly a quarter of the total international tourists visiting.

“The thing is that the Vietnam tourism industry’s capabilities in terms of both personnel and services failed to adapt to such a sudden growth (of Chinese tourists),” Tuan said.

“Worse still, Chinese visitors do not spread evenly across the country but only focus on some tourism sites, particularly Nha Trang in Khanh Hoa province and Da Nang.”

“Critical infrastructure, such as our broadband and power networks, requires engineers with the ability to keep them in tip-top condition,” says Professor Chua Kee Chaing, dean of the engineering faculty at the National University of Singapore (NUS).

“For example, engineers are needed to identify the faults and bring the network back up if there are outages in telecommunications coverage.

“Another example is the disruptions that we have encountered in the MRT rail system.”

The public service plans to hire 1,000 more engineers this year, in areas such as transport and water systems.

The shortage of engineers was highlighted by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong earlier this month at the 50th anniversary celebration of the Institution of Engineers Singapore.

The country, he said, faces a major challenge in building up engineering talent and keeping up with changes in its practice.

The brain drain is due to diverse factors, including the analytical approach that the profession demands .

Edwin Khew, president of The Institution of Engineers Singapore, says: “Engineers, due to their versatile skill sets and problem-solving abilities, continue to be highly sought after by sectors such as business and finance.

“Many leave engineering to join these sectors after a few years in practice, possibly because of the better pay. A bank may pay them 30 per cent more.

“Other factors include the lack of effective career planning and job rotation. For instance, not all engineers want to remain engineers, but may want to become senior managers. ”

Chua says that while the starting pay in engineering “can be fairly good”, the rate of increase may not be as good as that of other sectors, such as banking and finance.

Various measures to retain talent include government initiatives for a pay boost and more structured career advancement for public sector engineers.

Outreach efforts can also be improved to draw the young, says Chua.

“A lot of students I talk to say they want to do good in society. Maybe we don’t do our outreach well enough. For example, when engineers bring clean water technology to underdeveloped economies, eliminating diseases, the impact is tremendous.

“Increasingly, we want our students to go out to more disadvantaged communities.”

Some new engineers may also be daunted by the long road ahead.

Dr Koh Pak Keng, head of the aerospace systems programme at SIM University, says: “Certain skills, such as improving efficiency and performance in gas turbine engines, can take decades to master.”

Another hurdle is “the hard, dirty work” that comes with some engineering jobs, he adds.

Tan Peng Hoe, 31, who graduated from his civil engineering course at Nanyang Technological University about seven years ago, says his early years as an engineer at ExxonMobil involved inspecting and repairing furnaces in oil refineries, where the temperature reached about 40 deg C.

“You need hands-on experience early in your career to back you up if you want to progress, such as to a consultant role.”

Research is her calling While she enjoyed her engineering course in university, Betty Tsai was open to other career choices.

“Although I majored in chemical engineering, there were so many career options,” says the 27-year- old. She graduated from the National University of Singapore in 2012.

Her father is a retired businessman and her mother, a retired manager. The former Hwa Chong Institution student has a younger brother.

At a recruitment event in her first year in university, she met an English literature graduate who worked in a bank.

“The message I got was that some people seemed to be hiring no matter what one’s major was.”

She embarked on a career search during her four years in university and did various things to gain diverse experiences.

During her first year, she went on a three-week trip to the Himalayas as part of a school expedition to study conservation and irrigation systems.

She went on to complete five internships, each between two and six months, in fields as varied as public policy, chemical engineering, biofuels and the oil and gas industry.

She also attended recruitment talks and took up business modules as part of her degree course. After distilling all these experiences, she found that she enjoys crafting scientific experiments.

In 2012, she joined a manufacturer of consumer goods such as beauty products and household cleaning items and now develops new technologies as a research engineer.

This is her first permanent job after graduating and she believes she has found her passion.

“I like more creative, problem-solving jobs and I have found such a job doing research.”

Gave up erhu for engineeringCivil and structural engineer Kiu Yan Ru, 25, once had his heart set on becoming a professional erhu player. He picked up the traditional Chinese instrument at age 11 as a school co-curricular activity and fell in love with it.

After his O levels, he begged his parents to let him pursue his interest by taking a diploma in music at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. They refused.

His mum, educator Lau Meow Hwa, 59, says: “I was a former teacher and I wanted him to study and get higher qualifications so his work life would be smoother. I wanted him to go to junior college.”

A compromise was struck.

Kiu, the third of four boys in the family, thought a three-year polytechnic course would give him more time to play the erhu. The junior college track takes two years and he felt it would be more demanding.

He chose an engineering course at Ngee Ann Polytechnic because it involved physics, which he had enjoyed studying in secondary school.

During this time, he played the erhu in a Chinese music ensemble and as a soloist. He sometimes performed in concerts in countries such as China and Malaysia.

While serving his national service, he auditioned for the Singapore Armed Forces Music and Drama Company and was accepted. He spent his days as an NSman playing the erhu, often alone in a studio.

Ironically, this proved to be the final unravelling of his musical ambitions. “I came to the realisation that playing music full-time was not as fun as when it was a hobby,” he says.

He then pursued engineering in earnest, earning a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the National University of Singapore.

He joined engineering consultancy Arup Singapore last year and is now working on part of the Thomson-East Coast MRT line.

His job includes assessing site conditions, assisting builders and diverting traffic and services where necessary.

Such projects bring him satisfaction.

“Putting on a music concert could impact the few hundred people who attend it. With engineering, you can reach so many more people,” he says.

Dreams of being a pilotAs a child, Cindy Ng dreamt of becoming a pilot. She liked to play with Lego planes and found it “amazing” that something so big could fly.

Her father, retired civil servant Alfred Ng, 62, encouraged his technically inclined daughter to take up engineering as he felt that such skills would be in demand.

Ng, 29, obliged readily as the engineering diploma course she chose at Temasek Polytechnic had an aerospace component.

Even though she was not training to be a pilot, she was content to learn about a plane’s engine.

She went on to complete a degree course in aerospace systems engineering at SIM University.

Her training as an engineer, with its focus on logic and a systematic approach, has “opened up a lot of opportunities”, she says.

She spent the last 10 years working at Singapore Aero Engine Services, which repairs, maintains and overhauls plane engines.

A year ago, she began handling contracts and commercial matters at the firm after nine years of technical and engineering work.

“I’m allowed to grow in different roles within the company,” she says, adding that she will soon be leading a new project.

While she is doing well now, she has regrets about not fulfilling her childhood dream.

It was not for lack of trying though.

In her teens, she tried to get into the Singapore Youth Flying Club, but failed the stringent vision tests.

While she enjoyed learning to fly a small plane under supervision during university as part of her degree course, not many commercial airlines accepted women trainee pilots.

Her application to a commercial carrier was rejected and she could not afford a private pilot training course, which would have cost at least US$37,000 then.

While Ng appreciates learning about different aspects of the aviation industry, she says: “Sometimes, I still think about whether I can be a pilot.”

The marketplace was officiated by Indonesian Trade Minister Thomas Lembong and Alibaba Group vice president Brian A Wong.

“E-commerce is among the fastest and most effective way to reach out hundreds of millions of consumers in China and other countries without arduous efforts and huge investments. This will be an effective way to market our Indonesian products,” Lembong said as quoted by Antara news agency on Saturday.

Lembong said his ministry was currently also looking into other partnerships with other e-commerce giants aside from Alibaba.

With the new platform, Indonesian producers can sell their products directly to Chinese consumers without going through importers or distributors.

Mary McKeon, a team leader for the Environmentally and Socially Responsible Tourism (ESRT) Programme, said European travellers were keen on visiting Vietnam, including Da Nang.

“Da Nang is unique as a beach city for MICE business in Asia. It is also a safe destination with easy access [transport, visas, etc]. Its innovative travel programmes and promotions also attract Europeans,” she said.

McKeon was a speaker at a seminar last month at “BMTM (Beach-leisure & MICE Travel Mart) Da Nang 2016”, one of Vietnam’s biggest tourism events.

She said Europe was one of the most important tourism markets for Vietnam, generating more than a million arrivals a year, with a high rate of spending. European tourists account for 15 per cent of total international arrivals to Vietnam. The tourism authority’s figures show that Vietnam received 757,244 international visitors in May, a 30.2-per-cent increase over the same month last year. In the first five months, the country received more than 4 million arrivals, up 20 per cent year on year.

China provided the most visitors, followed by South Korea and Japan. Russia was the only European country in the top 10, while Thailand stood eighth.

Last year, Da Nang received 4.6 million visitors, including more than a million international tourists.

McKeon said spending by event organisers and delegates would benefit the economy of the city as well as Vietnam as a whole. She said advertisements, public relations, trade fairs, press conferences, events, social media and trade workshops would help the city become a favourite MICE destination.

She urged the city to implement effective systems, to focus on budget allocation and assignment of responsibilities, to develop partnerships to work closely with local and international stakeholders, to identify strategies for marketing, sales and lobbying, and to implement monitoring and impact analysis.

Daria Mishukova, an international branding and public relations expert, said Vietnam was very likely to receive more Europeans, especially from highly travel-oriented countries such as France, Germany and the United Kingdom. Just as Vietnam’s beaches and seaside attractions had motivated many Russians to visit the country, other European tourists will also enjoy visiting Da Nang sooner or later, she said.

Challenges

However, there is a long way to go despite the bright outlook, admitted Xuan Binh, deputy director of the Da Nang Department of Tourism.

“Other destinations in the region such as Malaysia’s Genting, Indonesia’s Bali, the Philippines’ Cebu and Thailand’s Phuket are constantly improving their tourism products and services. It is now time for the city to identify its direction and create differentiation to enhance competitiveness and integration of the destination,” he said.

He said the city’s major weaknesses included the lack of an MICE development strategy, collaboration for local tourism development, direct flights from Europe, North America and Australia, human resources, technical facilities, and support services such as night entertainment, shows, and souvenirs. “We do not have an international-level convention centre yet. And we need to attract airlines to open flight routes to Da Nang, as the new international terminal will be completed and put into operation next year,” he said.

Do Khoi, deputy director of Vietnam Airlines, said the carrier planned to expand its operations from Da Nang. By early next year, air links between Da Nang and Hong Kong, Busan and Taipei will be established, aside from the existing direct connections with Tokyo, Seoul, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Siem Reap and Bangkok and a number of charter flights from other cities in China.

Binh said priority should be placed on human-resource development, which requires cooperation among tourism authorities and educational institutes. There should also be efforts to attract reputable companies to set up offices in the city.

Van Luu of Vietnam’s Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, said Da Nang needed more than 24,000 skilled personnel for the tourism industry. This suggests high demand for professional capacity-building and high-quality HR training. Acknowledging that MICE tourists demand professional travel agencies, three-star or higher hotels and new attractions, he urged MICE-specialised companies and organisations to have a presence in the city.

He added that Da Nang should have a specialised organisation focusing on MICE.

“MICE tourists focus mainly on work, but still need entertainment, and to learn about economic conditions, cultural and social destinations,” he said. “Only when we satisfy customers will we achieve success.”

The development will help boost the local economy, BKPM chairman Franky Sibarani said, adding that the factory was likely to employ as many as 15,000 local laborers. He declined to name the investor.

“Production is 100 percent export,” he said as quoted by Antara news agency.

The investor reportedly targeted Central Java as the location of their plant due to sufficient infrastructure and the competitive cost of local labor for labor-intensive industry. The South Korean company have acquired a principle permit from BKPM and are expected to start factory construction and machine installation soon, Franky said.

BKPM have welcomed the investment plan. The agency is pushing to boost investment in Indonesia amid a challenging global economic situation, he added. As added value for the local administration, BKPM have encouraged the firm to use local raw materials, he said.

With a total investment of US$188 million with 435 projects in the first quarter of 2016, South Korea is the sixth biggest source of foreign investment in Indonesia, according to BKPM data. The investment provides employment for more than 28,000 workers. In 2015, South Korea reported a total investment of US$ 1.2 billion in Indonesia, a 7.6 percent from the same period the previous year.

“Malaysians don’t see Asean as something close to our hearts, as opposed to countries like Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar,” said Edmund Bon Tai Soon.

“If you go down to the ground there, the people always speak about Asean and what Asean can do for them. I don’t know why in Malaysia and perhaps also in Singapore, we don’t feel that closeness with Asean.

“That has to improve since we’ve adopted the Asean region 2025 charter to become the AseanEconomic Community,” he said in an exclusive interview with Sunday Star.

Asked which human right Malaysia was worst off in and needed to work harder at, he replied: “That would be civil and political rights. But this is across the board in Asean. If you look at Thailand, you can’t even speak about the Ruler.”

He said a new feature of AICHR was to provide institutionalised facetime with NGOs and CSOs (civil society organisations) with accredited status from AICHR.

“We never imagined this six years ago. We have accredited 11 CSOs across the region,” he said, adding that among the latest to be granted consultative relationship status was Pusat Komas from Malaysia.

At the last AICHR meeting, he said Malaysia had proposed two regional consultations for 2017.

“Malaysia has chosen right to water, with particular focus on the rural and indigenous communities.

“My personal goal, depending on what other participants want, is to have a general comment of AICHR to be adopted and disseminated as a document interpreting what the right to water and clean sanitation means.

“That will start the ball rolling towards other standards-setting,” he said.

Besides the previous Malaysian representative’s projects for 2016, Re­­­gional Forum on Media and Hu­­man Rights – concluded in May – and the Youth Debate in September, Bon hopes to insert a third one – a symposium on sharing good practices among Asean judges.

“We are trying to push for approval for this project at the Chiang Mai meeting in July. Thai­land, Laos and Philippines have expressed keen interest,” he added.