Managing director and chief executive officer Tay Ah Lek said Public Bank will focus on productivity and cost efficiency going forward, apart from its current focus of growing the retail banking’s organic growth

He was speaking to more than 6,000 shareholders at the bank’s 50th annual general meeting here on Monday.

The banking group achieved another profit milestone in 2015 with pre-tax profit of RM6.49bil, crossing the RM6bil mark for the first time

Tay said several key performance indexes for 2016 have been indentified and these include targeting a loan growth of 8 per cent-9 per cent, deposit growth of 7 per cent-8 per cent and gross impaired loan ratio of below 1 per cent.

For cost to income ratio, Tay said Public Bank preferred this not to exceed 33 per cent. Its cost to income ratio now is 30 per cent.

Tay said the bank would also focus on the fee-based income business by being less capital intensive.

“We would be targeting 15 per cent growth for fee based income this year,” he said, adding the bank recorded 17.8 per cent growth in 2015.

He did not comment on the bank’s succession plan.

Eco World Development, which is part of the JV, said on Monday: “With an estimated gross development cost (GDC) of RM1.6bil, the mall will transform the retail landscape in Kuala Lumpur, catering to all shopping needs with the introduction of popular home grown and new-to-market international brands”.

The other JV partners of BBCC to develop the 19.4 acres of into a mixed residential and commercial development include UDA Holdings Bhd and the Employees Provident Fund (EPF).

BBCC signed the head of terms agreements with Mitsui Fudosan and Zepp Hall Network as well as a MoU with The Ascott Ltd.

“The signing with three distinctive world-renowned partners will see the creation of the best retail, entertainment and hospitality brands for the Bukit Bintang City Centre (BBCC) development,” said Eco World.

The agreement also sets out the key commercial terms for the entry into a joint venture between Mitsui Fudosan Asia and the shareholders of BBCC for the development, ownership and operation of the retail mall through the establishment of a joint-venture company (Mall JVCo).

Phase 1 of the project will consist of a 45-storey block of strata offices and two blocks of serviced residences, comprising of 680 units, to begin construction in the third quarter of this year.

Mitsui Fudosan will jointly develop a 1.4 million square feet lifestyle retail mall in BBCC with a gross development cost of RM1.6bil , while Zepp Hall is investing in a live event hall, the first of its kind outside Japan.

The project is expected to start work in the third quarter of this year and will be developed over eight to 10 years.

The Mall JVCo is proposed to be 50% owned by Mitsui Fudosan Asia with the remaining 50% owned by the shareholders of BBCC.

“This substantial investment by Mitsui Fudosan Asia represents the largest retail investment to-date by the Mitsui Fudosan Group outside Japan,” it said.

Eco World said Mitsui Fudosan, with its vast experience in mall design, management and operation skills as well as its relationship with a large network of Japanese and international retailers, would help BBCC realise the best mall design with the best tenant mix and management standards.

Mitsui Fudosan Asia and BBCC plan to develop the retail mall under the Mitsui Shopping Park LaLaport brand which is a regional mall concept first conceived by Mitsui Fudosan slightly over 35 years ago.

The LaLaport concept has evolved over the years from a “place where people gather” to “a place where people interact,” in response to the diverse needs of the communities, it is a part of and the broad array of lifestyles in the cities where the malls are located.

Eco World said the heads of terms provided for an exclusivity period of four months plus one month from March 28, 2016 or such extended period as may be agreed to by the parties for the entry into the definitive agreements.

As for the agreement with Zepp Hall, this will see the development of a live concert hall in BBCC which can hold more than 2,000 audience.

Zepp Hall is a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc. and its core business is venue operations.

This concert hall located within the Entertainment Block in BBCC is next to the retail mall and is expected to be a top entertainment venue in the region.

The MOU with Ascott, a member of Singapore’s CapitaLand will also bring a global award-winning brand to BBCC.

Ascott is the largest international serviced residence owner-operator in the world with experience in managing over 45,000 units in 290 properties, spanning 100 cities in 27 countries across the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe and the Gulf Region.

Individuals with direct knowledge of the matter told the Inquirer that the Team Trident consortium, whose members are Ayala Land Inc., SM Prime Holdings Inc., Aboitiz Equity Ventures Inc. and Megaworld Corp., will not be submitting a bid on March 28, 2016 due to several unresolved issues.

A key deal breaker for Team Trident, the largest of the three pre-qualified groups eyeing the public private partnership (PPP) project, was the lack of a guarantee over the “road connectivity” for the expressway dike deal, one of the individuals said.

These worries cover connections to the C5 and C6 projects, the person said. A Team Trident spokesman did not respond to requests from the Inquirer to comment.

Bidders have continuously maintained that the Laguna Lakeshore Expressway dike was among the more attractive deals in the PPP pipeline. But it is almost one of the most complex.

The project combines a 47-kilometer tollroad from Taguig in Metro Manila to Los Baños, Laguna running on top of a massive flood control dike under a 37-year concession period.

The project’s main business opportunity is a 700-hectare land reclamation project on Laguna Lake. The winning bidder can develop the reclaimed land into mixed-use projects. This would be the largest property project of its kind so close to Metro Manila.

The Department of Public Works and Highways earlier this month moved the bid submission deadline to March 28 from March 14, 2016 “to make the necessary modifications to the contract to address certain foreseen risks”. The bid submission has been delayed several times since July last year.

Public Works and Highways secretary Rogelio Singson said last week there would be no further delays to the March 28, 2016 deadline.

Team Trident has been the most vocal in airing its concerns over the Laguna Lakeshore Expressway dike project, although other groups have been flagging risks.

These include political uncertainties given that the project, which is expected to be built from 2017 through 2024, would be awarded months or even weeks before President Aquino steps down in the middle of this year.

The two other pre-qualified groups are a unit of conglomerate San Miguel Corp. and Alloy Pavi Hanshin LLEDP Consortium, comprised of Malaysia’s MTD Group, South Korea’s Hanshin and the family of former Senator Manuel Villar Jr.

Neither group has categorically signaled that they would pull out of the project. San Miguel president Ramon S. Ang said last week that they were still keen on bidding.

The Laguna Lakeshore Expressway dike deal, like other PPP projects under procurement, is not covered by the election ban.

Data from the PPP Center showed 14 projects now under procurement with a combined value of P556.6 billion. So far, 12 deals valued at over P200 billion have been awarded and four are set to be finished before President Aquino steps down in the middle of 2016.

“Today I sell phone credits. Tomorrow I will run an online grocery store from my bed,” the 59- year-old told The Sunday Times from her small provision shop in Jakarta, which she has been running for the past 20 years.

“I used to be ’gaptek’. I knew only how to switch the computer on and off,” she said, using the Indonesian slang “gagap teknologi”, which refers to people who are technologically backward. “But the Internet is changing the way we do business so I am learning to use it.”

MIhar made the plunge into cyberspace four months ago when she was introduced to Kudo, a local tech start-up which allows “agents” like her to sell clothes and concert tickets from its 10-odd merchant partners through a shopping application installed on its tablets.

So far, she has used it to pay utilities and phone bills for her customers. In return, she gets shopping discounts from Kudo.

Small-time entrepreneurs like Madam Maihar as well as big capital owners and tech start-ups like Kudo and others, including from Singapore, are all eager for a piece of Indonesia’s e-commerce pie, valued at US$12 billion in 2014 and US$18 billion last year.

Billed as the next frontier in e-commerce after China and India, Indonesia’s market is expected to swell to US$130 billion in 2020, with an annual growth of 50 per cent, Information and Communications Technology Ministry spokesman Ismail Cawidu told The Sunday Times.

The government wants e-commerce to become “Indonesia’s backbone in digital economy so we can become the biggest in Southeast Asia in 2020”, he said. It will soon roll out a road map for the industry that will provide clear guidelines on logistics services, financing for start-ups, consumer protection, taxes and cyber security.

Recognising Indonesia’s digital potential, Singapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan during a visit to Jakarta in January proposed a new partnership between the two neighbours.

“We believe Indonesian universities and technical institutes will produce many graduates with digital skills and we are thinking of launching a scheme in which Singapore companies which are looking for talent will be able to recruit talent here, deploy them here and provide services for the rest of the world,” Dr Balakrishnan said.

With nearly a third of its 250 million population able to access the Internet, seven in 10 of whom do so on their smartphones, Indonesia has a ready captive market.

This, coupled with low labour costs and growing affluence, is a big draw for budding tech firms.

Ivan Tan, IE Singapore’s group director of Southeast Asia Group, which has helped 50 Singapore firms to collaborate with Indonesian players, said: “The increased spending power of the middle class and the rapid adoption of new technology will drive e-commerce growth in this country.”

While traditional on-demand transport, food and shopping services such as Go-Jek motorcycle-hailing service and Tokopedia online marketplace continue to dominate the industry, new ventures such as UangTeman, which provides short-term micro loans online, and HaloDiana, a private virtual assistant, have sprung up.

Low Internet penetration rates and service gaps such as poor infrastructure which drive up logistical costs, patchy mobile connectivity and limited banking facilities have spawned a new breed of innovative businesses.

For instance, Kudo, whose investors include two from Singapore, targets the “have-nots” by recruiting agents in rural locations to shop on behalf of their less technologically savvy communities.

Bareksa, an investment portal start-up, allows people to start mutual funds online with only S$10 (US$7.30) without stepping into a bank.

Singapore firms also are jumping on the bandwagon, despite challenges such as language barrier, few business connections, foreign investment restrictions, bureaucracy and online payment problems.

SingPost said it has “a special arrangement with Pos Indonesia” with full online tracking and work sharing at a discounted price that helps to lower logistic costs and cut delivery times for Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba merchants selling to the Indonesian market.

Henry Chan, business development head at ShopBack, which returns a portion of cash to shoppers who buy through the website, said while China has high demand, its “competitiveness is also very, very high”.

“Indonesia is closer to home and something we can relate to a lot more on a cultural basis,” he said.

Despite an “imperfect ecosystem”, from unclear government regulations to Indonesians’ love for haggling, it is only a matter of time before the country completely embraces the idea of e-commerce, technology experts say.

Said Indonesian Internet Service Providers Association chairman Jamalul Izza: “There’s no way but up. When we are lazy to go out or get stuck in a traffic jam, what else is there to do but shop or buy food online?”

The resort, located at the very tip of the Ong Doi Cape at the end of the southern island of Phu Quoc in southern Kien Giang province, known for its pristine beaches and forests, has emerged as a favourite destination for tourists as well as investors.

The resort, designed by the United Kingdom-based SALA, has 118 villas of different types, on the water, on a hill, beachfront villas, and villas on the rocks.

Specially, the resort has an overflowing pool system at multiple levels, whose shape is similar to the terraced fields in the north of Vietnam.

In addition to their own space, the villa owners and guests can enjoy the five-star luxury services of entertainment, gymnasium, and spa leisure clubs, as well as children’s playground facilities.

The Sungroup said that on purchasing the villas, that investors would get their land-use certificates and villa ownership rights, while those who lease their villas would be assured of an annual minimum profit of nine per cent in the first 10 years.

The group said the buyers could participate in the investment-sharing programme, under which they would get 9 per cent of the profits from the contract value for 10 years.

As similar local luxury resorts have been attracting a lot of tourists, investment in the resort would ensure more long-term stability than many investment channels, the group said.

The villa owners would get 15-nights free stay in different Sungroup resorts and hotels as well as enjoy the group’s membership rights at discounted services.

Telenor announced earlier that all profits above the reserve price of 3 million kyat per number – in this case a total of 228.9 million or $189,270 – will be donated to build a new monastic school building and digital education center in Myat Lay Yone Monastic School in Kwan Chan Gone Township, Yangon Division, the company said in a statement.

“Mandalay is the birthplace of Telenor. We launched our services firstly in Mandalay in September 2014. Today, we also had another memorable day in Mandalay. We believe that our loyal customers in Mandalay were inspired by the opportunity to support our education programme for the children at Myat Lay Yone monastic school in Kwan Chan Gone,” said Joslin E Myrthong, chief marketing officer (CMO) at Telenor.

The highest single bid of the day was received for the phone number 0979 9999999, which was sold for 80.2 million kyats or $66,315 .

In February, the company hosted the first auction in Yangon. The 55 special numbers fetched a total of 483.5 million kyats and the number 0977 7777777 won the highest bid worth 112 million kyats. Donation from the first auction went to myME and support Telenor’s plans to provide education to more than 5,000 to 10,000 children in 2016.

The auction process was assured by law firm MN Associates, and observed by audit firm Deloitte Touche Myanmar Vigour Advisory Ltd.

Telenor planned future auctions in other states and divisions.

Shopping at an electronics shop on Xo Viet Nghe Tinh Street, Thanh Hai of Binh Thanh District said he was buying an air conditioner because of the higher temperatures. Another customer at the shop, Thanh Truc of Thu Duc District, said he had bought a water misting fan to cope with the heat.

A representative of Nguyen Kim Electronic Appliance Centre said sales of air conditioners, refrigerators, fruit juicers and blenders had increased significantly compared to the same period last year.

Sales are expected to continue to increase as the heat wave is predicted to reach its peak in a few weeks, he said.

According to electronic shops, this is the best time to buy such products before the peak season’s higher prices.

Traders said fan brands, including KDK, Panasonic, Mitsubishi, and Asia, are priced from VND300,000 (US$13.45) to VND1 million ($44.8) for popular ones and VND1 million to VND3 million for hi-end ones. .

Customers are paying more attention to product quality and durability, according to shop owners. They also prefer energy-efficient air conditioners.

The most popular are 1-1.5 HP air conditioners from Toshiba, Daikin, LG, Panasonic and Reetech, with prices between VND8 million and 12 million.

With the hot and dry season expected to be more severe this year, electronic shops expect sales of refrigeration products to increase strongly.

New products and promotions to attract shoppers have been launched by shops in collaboration with producers.

At Nguyen Kim Electronic Appliance Centre, for instance, customers buying air conditioners from March 11 to 31 will receive a free guarantee for an additional year as well as a maintenance package.

It will also discount up to 30 per cent on fans, juicers, blenders and refrigeration products, and offer freebies.

This comes less than six months after Air France stopped plying the Paris-Kuala Lumpur route.

Lufthansa stopped its 3 weekly flights or close to 900 weekly seats on the Frankfurt to Kuala Lumpur route on Feb 28. However, it continues to offer connectivity from German cities to Singapore and Bangkok.

This also comes on the heels of the suspension of flights to Paris and Amsterdam by Malaysia Airlines (MAS) in early February.

“It certainly reduces the visibility of direct connections for Lufthansa in the Malaysia outbound market to Germany,” says an industry executive.

This is the second time Lufthansa has suspended flights into Kuala Lumpur. Rising cost, labour issues, stiff competition that puts pressure on yields could be factors that forced the German carrier to review its strategy.

The first time it move out of KLIA was in 1998 during the financial crisis but returned several years later. It was operating five times weekly flights but reduced them to 3 times a week on Jan 6.

“They may come back if they have the right planes,” says the executive.

This departure does put a small dent on passenger volumes at KLIA. As it is, KLIA has seen a drop in volume due to a cut in capacity by MAS, though the frequency increases by other airlines have somewhat helped cushion the drop.

For December 2015 there was a 12.5% drop in passenger traffic at KLIA to 2.12 million from 2.43 million the previous year. But overall traffic at all airports operated by Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) inched up by 0.5% to 83.73 million in 2015. For January this year, passenger traffic expanded by 4.4%.

This year, MAHB expects better volumes and has forecast a 2.5% rise in passenger numbers to 86 million.

Although passenger traffic to and from Europe has declined about a quarter for January and February this year, that decline was mitigated by a double-digit increase in traffic to and from the Middle East.

Lufthansa accounted for about 5% of total traffic for KLIA but strong growth in traffic from KLM, Turkish Airlines and British Airways in addition to growth in travel by Emirates and Qatar Airways are expected to result in net growth in passenger traffic to KLIA.

With Air France and Lufthansa’s departure, the European airlines still operating out of KLIA are British Airways (BA), KLM and Turkish Airlines.

There has been much effort made by MAHB to get more European carriers to fly into KLIA but Europe is still reeling from the economic slowdown and experts believe 2016 will largely be a year of Asian carriers flying into KLIA.

“There is significant upside to BA, KLM, MAS and its code share partner Emirates now, at the expense of Lufthansa,” adds the executive.

MAS now only flies to London, and all other European connections are either via Emirates and its long-time code share partner, KLM.

“We still have a code share with MAS and we can still connect at KLIA,” Air France Royal Dutch Airlines country manager for Malaysia and Brunei Aude-Lise Combier says.

But the bigger gainers are really the Middle-Eastern carriers as they are willing to fight on fare pricing, product offering and wide connectivity.

“It is tough to compete with the likes of Emirates, Etihad Airlines and Qatar Airways,” says the executive.

To take advantage of the vacuum left by Lufthansa, several carriers are offering special fare packages to Europe.

KLM and Air France are big rivals of Lufthansa and yesterday, KLM introduced its refurbished business class seats in Kuala Lumpur in a bid to woo more traffic.

It is enjoying high loads now says Combier, but she declined to elaborate further.

With the new seats, she says “we are fully convinced of the potential of premium traffic.”

Though for now the demand is a bit slow.

KLM was not the only airline to showcase its business class flat beds this week.

MAS did the same earlier in the week with its fully lie-flat seats for its A330-300 fleet.

A MAS spokesperson says volume was good for the seats as the new seats are already fitted on some of its aircraft.

This new seat offering is part of MAS bid to make a comeback after suffering two major air disasters in 2014 that had eroded some of its market share in the global air passenger traffic space. Gaining that back is going to take time and for that, it has to invest to reinvent itself.

Some of the first few changes it is making is to the seats, food, entertainment and also services.

“Competition is so intense and if MAS wants to fill its front end of the cabin, its offering has to match that of its peers or be even better,” says an airline executive.

These include raising corporate income tax rebate from 30 per cent to 50 per cent of tax payable, capped at $20,000 each year for Year of Assessment 2016 and 2017.

The Special Employment Credit (SEC), which was due to expire this year, will also be modified and extended to the end of 2019, with a top-up of $1.1 billion. This will provide employers with a wage offset for workers aged 55 and above who earn up to $4,000 a month.

In his maiden Budget speech on Thursday (March 24), Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat said the need to restructure is “urgent and critical”, pointing to how technological changes, especially in robotics and automation, are disrupting business models across all sectors.

Heng added that while real wage increases over the past few years have benefited workers and households in Singapore, both businesses and workers will be “worse off” unless productivity improves in tandem.

Several measures were announced to address near-term concerns while encouraging restructuring.

The first source of support for firms comes from existing measures and public spending, including public infrastructure projects, Heng said.

The extended Special Employment Credit will cover about 340,000 workers, or about three in four older Singaporean workers.

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This year, total spending is expected to be $5 billion, higher than in FY2015. The increases are mainly in healthcare, education, security and urban redevelopment.

The Transition Support Package, introduced in FY 2013, will also see its largest payout to date, he said. This month, firms will receive a total of $1.9 billion for qualifying wage increases given under the Wage Credit Scheme.

Heng added that public sector demand for construction projects is expected to increase significantly this year, helping to mitigate a decline in private sector construction demand.

This includes more than $2.5 billion of public sector contracts for smaller projects – construction value estimated to be below $100 million – which will benefit smaller construction firms.

Secondly, the corporate income tax rebate will be raised from 30 per cent to 50 per cent of tax payable, with a cap of $20,000 rebate each year for Year of Assessment (YA) 2016 and 2017. The last time a 50 per cent rebate was given was in YA 2001.

Heng said the higher rebate was targeted at SMEs. It will cost an additional $180 million over two years, bringing the total support given to companies under the corporate income tax rebate to close to $1 billion over two years.

Thirdly, the Special Employment Credit (SEC), which was due to expire this year, will be modified and extended to the end of 2019, with a top-up of $1.1 billion. This will provide employers with a wage offset for workers aged 55 and above who earn up to $4,000 a month.

Group chief executive officer and executive director Alex Kang said the subsidiary, set up in 2006, had built a strong track record over the years in serving its customers.

“We believe there is much potential to be tapped, in light of Thailand’s position as a key manufacturing hub especially for the high-tech electronics and automatic sector,” he said in a statement.

“The proposed IPO (initial public offering) would not only unlock a certain portion of value for shareholders, but more importantly raise the working capital necessary to propel SMT Industries into realising its true potential in the regional EMS sector.”

SMT Industries supports global clientele in their EMS for computer peripherals, consumer electronics and automotive industrial products.

Its production facility, located in Prachinburi, sits on 171,716 sq ft land area with a current built-up area of 65,560 sq ft, allowing room for future expansion.

Barring unforeseen circumstances, SMT Industries is targeted to list in 2018.

SMT Industries has appointed AIRA Securities Public Co Ltd as its Thailand principal adviser for the proposed initial public offering.

EG Industries said the number of shares to be offered, issue price and targeted proceeds to be raised had yet to be determined.

The exercise is subject to regulatory approvals from Malaysia and Thailand, as well as EG Industries’ shareholders at an EGM.