Regulators recently approved higher FIT-Allowance (FIT-All) charges of 12.40 centavos a kilowatt-hour (kWh) for 2016. The current rate (implemented since February 2015) is 4 centavos a kWh. The higher FIT-Allowance (FIT-All) will result in an additional P16.80 in the monthly bill of a typical Meralco consumer using 200 kWh, officials of the power retailer said. That is, if all other bill components such as the generation, transmission and distribution charges as well as related taxes remain the same.

The FIT-All is a uniform charge billed on all on-grid consumers who are supplied with electricity through the distribution or transmission network. The charge goes to a fund managed by National Transmission Corp. (Transco) to pay guaranteed rates to renewable energy (RE) developers under the FIT scheme. Transco formally advised collecting agents such as Meralco last month of the anticipated FIT-All increase. Thus, the higher FIT-All would be reflected in the April bills of customers, Meralco said.

The next batch of monthly FIT-All payments from power consumers will be used to pay renewable energy projects amounting to P6.92 billion, of which the bulk will be going to wind projects, P2.79 billion; solar, P2.59 billion; biomass, P1.26 billion, and hydro, P282.52 million.

The regulatory body assessed the list of existing FIT-qualified projects as well as pending applications that are likely to have met the requirements for eligibility before the March 15 deadline for the second batch of solar FIT.

The ERC-approved FIT rates are P6.63 a kWh for biomass, P5.90 for hydro, P8.53 for first phase and P7.40 for second phase of wind, and P9.68 for first phase and P8.69 for second phase of solar power.

ERC said it took cognizance of the appropriate commercial operations date of the plans “to avoid any deficit occurring in the funds should these plants remain unaccounted for.”

Transco sought regulatory approval in December to collect a feed-in tariff allowance or FIT-All of 10.25 centavos a kWh from consumers starting this year but the ERC approved a higher rate based on certain factors and assumptions such as the total capacity of FIT-qualified projects and electricity sales.

Deputy Federal Territories Minister Datuk Loga Bala Mohan said a notice was issued to the contractor last week to pay the fine.

“We have penalties for people who indiscriminately chop down trees, especially old trees within the city,” he said.

The contractor was hired by the Armed Forces Fund Board (LTAT) for a road-widening project.

“I was informed that LTAT was not told that there was no approval to cut down the trees,” said Loga Bala.

“There have been too many cases of contractors disregarding the laws. We will not hesitate to take action,” he added.

It is learnt that each rain tree felled cost about RM5,000.

Ecotourism and Conservation Society Malaysia (Ecomy) had expressed its disappointment over the tree felling.

(Top and above) The old, shady rain trees that previously lined both sides of Jalan Cochrane have been reduced to mere stumps by the contractor hired for a road-widening project, which has yet to be approved.

The old, shady rain trees that previously lined both sides of Jalan Cochrane have been reduced to mere stumps by the contractor hired for a road-widening project, which has yet to be approved.

“Mature trees are part and parcel of a mature community and its civilisation. As such, they have a bigger significance than just providing irreplaceable ecological services such as clean air, cutting down noise pollution and cooling down the ambient temperature of an area,” said Ecomy president Andrew Sebastian.

“They are part of a city’s identity and must be preserved at all cost.

“The illegal felling of these trees must therefore be condemned. At the same time, we applaud Kuala Lumpur City Hall for punishing the perpetrator,” he added.

It was reported that 16 rain trees along Jalan Cochrane were chopped down last week, although the proposal for road widening there had not been approved yet.

The project was discussed during the one-stop centre meeting on March 15. However, no approval was given to chop down the trees at that location.

Residents living in the area were horrified to find only stumps left of what were once magnificent trees at the site.

“I enjoy taking my dogs for walks along that stretch every weekend,” said expatriate Mary Hopkins-Gollier.

“Those trees were the best thing about that place. I was shocked that they were all gone,” she said, adding that the city lost a bit of its soul without those grand trees.

Tourism Minister Arief Yahya said that Indonesia, which has become a top tourist destination for travellers from Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries, would provide more halal tourist destinations to further lure more tourists from the region.

He said that the government would introduce halal certification for foods and hotels in major tourist destinations so that Muslim tourists would feel at ease when traveling in the country.

Halal tourism is a travel concept that provides services in line with Islamic regulations. Hotels in such destinations, for example, do not serve alcohol and provide separate swimming pools and spa facilities for men and women.

“Because the market wants halal-certified food products, then we should follow market demand,” Arief said.

The government has carried out efforts to improve the country’s halal tourism, such as by forming a team tasked with promoting halal tourism and preparing 10 halal tourist destinations — including Lombok, West Sumatra and Aceh, according to Tourism Ministry marketing director general Sapta Nirwandar.

Several improvements will be made to public facilities with the addition of prayer facilities and washrooms, Sapta added.

According to the 2016 Global Muslim Travel Index (GMTI) study released on Wednesday by MasterCard and an authority on halal-friendly travel, CrescentRating, Indonesia jumped two places to take the fourth spot behind Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Turkey in 2016.

“Indonesia’s awareness of providing halal services for Muslim travellers has been increasing, so that resulted in the country climbing two spots from last year,” MasterCard Global Products and Solutions group executive for Asia Pacific, Matthew Driver, said, adding that Indonesia also offered a variety of tourist destinations.

The GMTI looks at in-depth data covering 130 destinations that were scored against a backdrop of criteria — including level of services and facilities it provides, accommodation options, marketing initiatives, as well as visitor arrivals. Each criterion was then weighted to make up the overall index score.

Indonesia had an Index score of 70.6, while Malaysia scored 81.9, followed by the UAE at 74.7 and Turkey at 73.9.

Driver said that Indonesia must understand the needs and preferences of Muslim travellers if the country wanted to catch up with Malaysia, UAE and Turkey by providing halal food services, prayer facilities and washrooms, because water played a key role in purity and cleanliness for Muslims.

The study also revealed that the Muslim travel market continued to be one of the fastest-growing segments in the global travel industry, and that Muslim travellers were increasingly looking at destinations that took their needs into account.

There was an estimated 117 million Muslim visitor arrivals globally last year, representing close to 10 percent of the entire travel market. This is projected to grow to 168 million visitors by 2020, when travel expenditures for Muslim travellers are expected to exceed US$200 billion. –

Representatives of Hpakant residents declared on Friday that all the jade mining in Kachin state must be suspended until companies can ensure that their activities will benefit local people.

A statement was issued containing six proposals for the government.

“We have high hopes for the new government we voted for. We do believe that the government will pay heed to our voices and form an investigating task force as soon as possible.

“If they do not, we will do it ourselves with support from experts and civil society organisations [CSOs],” said La Mone La Taung, a resident.

Mining in Hpakant does not benefit the local community or the country, he said, adding that gains went to a certain group of people and crony companies.

London-based Global Witness said in a report released last October that Myanmar’s secretive jade industry was worth an estimated US$31 billion (Bt1.1 trillion) in 2014 – far exceeding the $3.4 billion official account.

Most of the world’s highest quality jadeite comes from Hpakant.

“According to statistics, sales of gems and jade only account for 0.78 per cent of our gross domestic product. We have learnt that a vehicle employed here costs about $1 million and there are more than 1,000 of them.

“The national income from jade mining is less than the price of machinery here. Is that logical?” asked Ye Thein Oo from the Myanmar Alliance on Transparency and Accountability, a coalition of 518 CSOs.

He joined the team that observed the situation on the ground earlier this month. He found that many companies operate without a licence. With poor transparency, CSOs based in Hpakant do not know how many actually have a licence. His organisation has asked several times for the list of licensees but received no response.

According to the Mines Ministry, 808 private companies are running 15,638 mines and 222 joint ventures were working on 302 sites in 2012. The mines spread in villages, covering over 15,000 acres.

“The government needs to reconsider if the mining activities in Hpakant are really beneficial to the state,” Ye Thein Oo said. “If the activities only cause widespread human suffering and negative impacts on the environment, it is better to stop them.”

According to La Mone La Taung, some companies entered his village with maps and told villagers that they were authorised to mine a particular area. Villagers did not know how to verify such claims. Most of the available jobs also went to people from the lower part of Myanmar, leaving few for local residents.

Mining also led to car accidents and mudslides due to the collapse of waste soil. Nearly 300 people have lost their lives since November, said Kai Ra, a local resident. This is on top of the destruction of vast forest areas, as trees were felled for fuel.

About 50 mountains in the Hpakant region have disappeared and about 10 villages have vanished. Natural disasters like flooding are more frequent, she added.

Naung Latt, another resident, said mining companies pay large sums of money to investigators and even residents who oppose the projects. He said he was offered 2 million kyat (Bt58,500) to stop protesting, but he declined, as money was not the goal of the protest.

In the proposal, the residents’ demanded the new government suspend all mining until good resource management policies and laws are in place.

Mining companies must face action for loss of lives and property due to frequent landslides and accidents. The government should also form an independent, inclusive investigation commission that includes experts and locals to investigate the losses of the state as well as the public.

The prices of essential foods and foodstuff, school equipment, dairy products, and medicines will remain steady for a year starting on April 1, with 86 companies registering to take part, one more than last year, according to the Department of Industry and Trade.

Forty of them make food and foodstuff, with six joining what has become an annual programme for the first time. Four companies that took part last time have withdrawn.

The programme for school supplies has attracted 15 firms, while 14 and five have registered respectively for the medicine and dairy programmes.

Ten banks have signed up, and they will lend VND12.9 trillion (US$575.47 million) to the participating companies.

This represents an increase of VND1.05 trillion ($47.08 million) over last year, the department said.

Of the sum, VND9.3 trillion ($404.3 million) will be short-term working capital loans for 12 months at an interest rate of 5-8 per cent.

The remaining VND3.6 trillion will be medium- and long-term loans for participating firms to invest in production facilities, improve technologies and develop distribution systems, and the interest rate will be 8.5-9 per cent.

The participating companies have been instructed to increase supply by 30-35 per cent this year and ensure their products meet 25-30 per cent of market demand, rising to 30-40 per cent during Tet (Lunar New Year) in early 2017.

School equipment suppliers have been told to increase supply by 15-30 per cent and meet 35-40 per cent of market demand.

The diary products to be supplied will be 377.5 tonnes a month, 8.37 per cent higher than last year.

Pharmaceutical companies have been instructed to meet 50 per cent of demand.

According to the People’s Committee, the programme has benefited both consumers and producers in the last 14 years, and more and more firms are signing up.

They have contributed greatly to developing distribution channels for Vietnamese products and the “Vietnamese people give priority to using Vietnamese goods” campaign, and to controlling inflation and ensuring social security, it said.

And that means eating at hawker centres, buying groceries from wet markets and eschewing private transport for trains and buses.

This is what many of them told The Sunday Times when asked about Singapore’s thrice-awarded title of being the most expensive city in the world for expatriates.

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), the research and analysis division of British media firm The Economist Group, produces the worldwide cost of living survey to help firms come up with compensation packages and allowances for expatriates and business travellers.

It takes into account more than 400 individual prices across 160 products and services in calculating its cost of living index.

Singapore has placed top since 2014, and was ranked first again in the latest report earlier this month, ahead of Zurich and Hong Kong, which shared second place, with Geneva coming in third.

The Singapore government responded to this with a detailed post on its gov.sg website to explain why the country was top of the chart.

A key reason was the Singapore dollar’s strong appreciation against the United States dollar in the last decade, and the type of upmarket goods that the survey takes into account, such as filet mignon and international newspapers.

It also reported that the prices quoted by the EIU for many products and services were far more than what Singaporeans typically pay.

Expats whom The Sunday Times spoke to said the cost of living depends on the lifestyle they choose.

Italian Joe Galeotti, a 48-year-old hairstylist, added: “You can either have a meal for less than S$10 (US$7.30) at the foodcourt or S$200 at a restaurant… I choose the former as it makes more sense to me to eat Asian food when I’m in an Asian country.”

Many said they have fallen in love with Singapore’s public transport.

Said Paul Burton, a 41-year-old director at IHS, a firm that provides defence analytics: “We now spend less in a month on train tickets in Singapore than in a week back in London.”

For psychology lecturer Aoife McLouglin, 30, getting around by taxis is also relatively affordable. She said: “It is easily a third of the price compared to my country, Ireland.”

Dutch expatriate Emile Leus, 43, simply takes advantage of the weather here. The owner of TVworkshop Asia, an events company, said: “I cycle everywhere I go and it’s great.”

The EIU has named Singapore the most expensive place in the world to get a car because of its certificate of entitlement system and, for some expats used to driving, this takes some getting used to.

Said Dutchman Charlie van Eeden: “I used to drive a BMW but it’s just too expensive here. Now, I’m paying S$1,400 for a rental Hyundai. For the same price, I could probably rent a BMW 5 Series in Amsterdam.”

If not for his two young children, aged three and five, the 39-year-old head of Asia at a creative agency added that he would rely on public transport or cabs to get around instead.

Rental rates here also require adjusting expectations.

Instead of paying S$6,000 a month to rent a new condominium unit in Novena, Galeotti chose to live in a nearby 10-year-old condominium instead, paying almost half the price in rent. He said: “I don’t mind that it is an old condominium. It still has great facilities.”

Experts caution against reading too much into the EIU survey.

Dr Yvonne McNulty, who specialises in expatriation and global mobility research, said it is aimed at a niche group of highly paid foreigners on “expatriate” contracts, which tend to offer housing and car allowances, and that these expats hope to replicate how they live back home here.

The associate lecturer at RMIT University Singapore and founder of Expat Research added: “The survey does not consider ’localised’ expats, who are here on local terms, even though we’re seeing more of them now.”

Private school fees remain a bugbear. Frenchman Eric Balanca, 50, is here on a local contract with his wife, 18-year-old son and toddler.

His son studies at the French School of Singapore, costing him about S$25,000 annually. “It’s definitely a high price because in France, education is free.

“There are local schools, but it’s difficult to get in and I would prefer my son to attend the French school,” he said.

Expatriates also find ways to get around the high costs of certain goods in Singapore.

“Baby items are much cheaper in the UK because they are discounted, so we used to ship prams, baby chairs and other baby items from there,” said David Brotherton, a 39-year-old lawyer from Britain.

Despite earning the title of costliest city for the third year running, all the expatriates whom The Sunday Times spoke to said that they would definitely recommend Singapore as a place to live and work.

Said Balanca: “The people are great and I like the vibrant economic environment… My advice is to take care of your income by budgeting.”

(S$1.37 = US$1)

Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti, who was appointed to President Joko Widodo’s Cabinet in late 2014, has since ordered the sinking of 152 vessels caught poaching in Indonesian waters.

The bulk of the culprits are from Vietnam (50) and the Philippines (43), but they also include 14 Indonesia-flagged vessels without permits.

Only one was from China, the country where the Kway Fey, the fishing boat that sparked the latest tensions between the two nations, is from, the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries said last week.

The Chinese boat was stopped by the local maritime authorities on March 19 after it was spotted fishing illegally in Indonesian waters. But a Chinese coast guard patrol boat later prevented its Indonesian counterpart from towing it back to base.

The incident has spiralled into a rare territorial dispute between the two countries, with Indonesia taking an uncharacteristically hard stance.

Susi has demanded that Beijing return the Kway Fey to Indonesia so that she can sink it – to send a strong signal to poachers.

The incident last weekend is the third known skirmish between a China-flagged vessel and the Indonesian maritime authorities.

In March 2013, an armed Chinese coast guard vessel confronted an Indonesian patrol craft and demanded the release of Chinese fishermen apprehended in the Natunas.

There was a similar incident in 2010.

According to President Joko, Indonesia suffers annual losses of more than US$20 billion from illegal fishing.

Susi has been the main driver behind the president’s plan to revive the shipbuilding and fisheries industries in a bid to re-establish Indonesia as a maritime power.

To achieve the goal, Indonesia has been trying to maximise the potential of the sector through, among other things, modernisation of current industry practices, abolishing trans-shipment activities, and going after poachers.

Enforcement efforts have been ramped up in recent years, including the enhancement of its maritime surveillance capabilities.

Indonesian Defence Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu said in December last year that Indonesia will deploy a fleet of jet fighters as well as increase the number of navy vessels and troops in the Natuna Islands.

The Navy chief of staff, Admiral Ade Supandi, said the ramping up of military assets in the area will occur only if there is an escalation in the crisis which he described as “a fishing dispute” and not “a defence issue”.

Currently, there are five naval warships patrolling the Natunas and the Karimata Strait, he added.

Defence experts say Indonesia’s naval assets are no match for China’s massive maritime force, which includes a coast guard unit that operates what have been referred to as “monster” vessels, 10,000-ton patrol ships able to reach a speed of 25 knots or 46kmh.

Emirza Adi Syailendra, a defence analyst from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said that despite plans to boost Indonesia’s maritime presence, those efforts had been limited to the development of infrastructure with little attention given to defence. “That is why Indonesia is still unable to rely on its navy or coast guard to be an effective deterrent, and will still have to turn to diplomacy,” he said.

Thursday offered a good look. Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat announced a budget that includes government spending of S$73.4 billion (US$53.49 billion).

It comes a month after Hong Kong’s Financial Secretary John Tsang announced its Budget with an expenditure of HK$490 billion (US$63.20 billion). The reaction here is that, at first glance, the two financial czars – both men coincidentally have a Master’s in Public Administration from Harvard – might have been studying the same playbook.

Given tough times ahead, they announced near-term relief mainly in the form of tax rebates and loan schemes for small and medium- sized enterprises (SMEs), and handouts for people to help boost consumption. Buzzwords such as innovation, robotics, and research and development also liberally litter the duo’s respective long-term visions.

Ernst and Young’s Hong Kong tax managing partner Tracy Ho puts it thus: “They (Singapore) watch us, and we are watching them too.”

Hong Kong is facing headwinds from a mix of political tensions and economic trends. Its retail sales recently suffered the worst decline in 13 years. Tourist numbers are down. The economy will grow between 1 and 2 per cent this year, Tsang has said. But a greater anxiety is over the city’s long-term prospects. One nagging worry is the lack of diversity in its economy, in terms of its dependence on China and in its industry mix. Hong Kong is heavily dominated by the financial, hospitality and other services sectors, with a negligible manufacturing presence.

It is in this broader vision that Singapore’s Budget on Thursday offers takeaways for Hong Kong, say those interviewed. Businessman David Ting, past president of the Chamber of Small and Medium Business, laments that unlike in Singapore, Hong Kong SMEs “do not have a clear direction on where we should go”. In particular, he lauds the Singapore Budget for being “very focused”. The S$4.5 billion Industry Transformation Programme offers targeted industries a road map for how they can grow.

On why Hong Kong businesses, known for their entrepreneurial spirit, will need such guidance now, Ting says the landscape has changed. With China closed off in the past, it was easier for businesses to suss out opportunities, he adds.

Lawmaker Charles Mok, an IT entrepreneur, says that while there are superficial similarities between both budgets, given the emphasis on R&D, there was a distinct difference in how it is to be applied. In Singapore, the focus is on how to reinforce the manufacturing industry by introducing automation, he says.

“In Hong Kong, we talk of developing R&D. But who is it for? Factories in China? What about our domestic industry – how do we help them get restarted?” says Mok.

On the flip side, Singapore’s Silver Support Scheme to help the elderly does not go far enough, notes social work expert Nelson Chow. “(It) helps the bottom 20 per cent. But in Hong Kong, this is something we’re already doing. The next step is to introduce a universal pension.”