Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) will be meeting AirAsia soon to discuss and resolve the issues, such as the heavy construction that has caused disruption to the budget airline’s headquarters at the Low-Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT).

“This is a tenancy agreement between AirAsia and MAHB that needs to be settled immediately. AirAsia has a new headquarters in Kuala Lumpur International Terminal2 (KLIA2) but it is not ready yet.

“The tenancy agreement has ended and this is being negotiated with AirAsia,” Liow told a press conference yesterday after launching the Chinese version of the Malaysia Book of Records (MBR).

AirAsia chief executive officer Aireen Omar said last month that it was supposed to move to its new headquarters a while ago but the building of the new office was delayed because the airport was built much larger than originally intended and the DCA airport tower had to be moved.

Staff members have to park 500 metres away from the terminal and walk to work while construction work at the terminal goes on right next to the airline office.

She added that AirAsia would hopefully be able to move to KLIA2 in October.

Earlier at the event, MBR founder Tan Sri Danny Ooi said the purpose of the Chinese version was to instil the spirit of excellence in everyone and he hoped the names in the records would forever be archived for the younger generation as an inspiration.

“KBZ Bank has come a long way and growing alongside a new Myanmar, is looking to build even more branches which together represent the network and strength of KBZ Group as a whole,” said Aung Kyaw Myo, the bank’s managing director.

Aung Kyaw Myo also thanked all customers.

“We are also taking the opportunity to implement improvements to customer experience and services. By investing in an enhanced IT network to deliver more speed, connectivity and reliability, we are able to provide stronger offerings to help our customers reach a brighter financial future.”

The bank is undertaking improvement to in-branch experience for customers with contemporary redesigns and upgrades to branch facilities. Amongst these would be added features such as bulk cash lanes for efficiency and private meeting pods for customers to comfortably speak with staff. The enhancements to its branch and ATM network IT systems through the newly launched KBZ Gateway will also significantly reduce customer wait time for services and increase connectivity.

Looking forward, the bank plans to continue its network growth, which has accelerated in parallel to the country’s rapid development in recent years, having reached its last milestone of 300 branches only less than two years ago in November, 2014.

The executive also thanked employees in helping the bank reach the important milestone through their relationship with customers. During the floods last year, branch managers were a vital element to the success of the bank’s emergency relief efforts.

The bank now boasts 16,000 staff nationwide.

KBZ recently won the licences to open representative offices in Thailand and Singapore.

Blue, who was in Singapore last month as part of a whirlwind Asian tour that included Beijing and Bangalore, recounted his first meeting in 1997 with co-founder Reid Hoffman, who had been introduced to him by a mutual friend.

He said they talked for four hours, fixated on the question of “if you were going to try to make the world a better place, how would you do it?” The answer was to help people scale the economic ladder by helping them get access to jobs.

“We both agreed that the best possible way was to make an economic difference for people. If you could help make people richer, more capable of paying their bills, sending their kids to college, that’d be the best way to make the world a better place,” said Blue.

“The easiest lever to pull on… is the economic lever. Political levers are hard and there are always people against certain political changes. Economic development benefits everyone.”

The co-founders are well on their way to the goal of economic empowerment, given that LinkedIn can lay claim to revolutionising the way people hunt for jobs and how companies recruit staff.

The company has the world’s largest online professional network today, with more than 433 million members in over 200 countries and territories. There are more than six million jobs advertised on LinkedIn.

According to a survey by recruiting software company Jobvite, 87 per cent of recruiters in the United States used LinkedIn as a recruiting tool.

Little wonder then that the company attracted the attention of tech titan Microsoft, which recently acquired the firm for US$26.2 billion in one of tech’s biggest deals.

There have been mixed reactions to the blockbuster deal, with some analysts seeing complementary strengths while others criticised what they perceived as an inflated purchase price and LinkedIn’s slower user growth.

The Straits Times asked Blue about the crash in the company’s stock price in February this year. Its shares closed down 43.6 per cent on February 5, one day after its fourth- quarter results were announced.

The price fall caused several brokerages to downgrade the stock, citing its “lower growth profile”. Blue declined to talk about the stock price, but refuted claims about stalling growth.

He cited the potential of a chain of new products: its e-learning platform Lynda; Elevate, an employee engagement application; and Lookup, a communications product.

“We are seeing substantial growth this year in how people are using our products to connect with each other. Our mobile app has vastly accelerated the way people are messaging each other. We are seeing growth everywhere right now.”

The company makes its money mainly from three revenue streams: marketing solutions, premium subscriptions and talent solutions, which makes up the lion’s share. Revenue for the first quarter this year increased 35 per cent compared with last year, coming in at US$861 million.

But it has not always been smooth sailing for one of the world’s most successful start-ups. The first few years in scaling up were the most challenging years, said Blue.

In its early days, LinkedIn was across the hall from Friendster, then the hottest social networking website. He said LinkedIn did not experience the same kind of growth initially as Friendster.

“We were a little jealous, but we knew we were building a different kind of thing. That difference has been very valuable to us, it’s what makes us different from social networks like WeChat and Facebook.”

Blue said Asia will be one of the main drivers of growth.

Asia makes up roughly a quarter of LinkedIn’s total user base, growing to 92 million in the first quarter of this year, more than double the number three years ago.

Singapore is the Asia-Pacific headquarters and the location of the company’s first data centre outside the US. There are approximately a million LinkedIn users here.

Blue said the firm has started on market-specific development in Asia. “In China we have a team on the ground working on a Chinese professional network, Chitu, which is being developed by Chinese entrepreneurs but connected to LinkedIn.”

LinkedIn is also making a big push to increase its membership base among students and young professionals.

Blue added that the company has its eye on India’s young workers: “In India… we worked on a project called placements for these young professionals, also known as freshers, and it’s a way of us interacting with professionals at the beginning of their careers, to help them find recruiters and companies they want to work for.”

Blue has two tips for Singaporean companies facing a labour shortage.”If you’re a small business, don’t just search, search and reach out to people connected with your workforce… People want to work with great people, and those are frequently people they know.

“The second reason why people choose to work at certain companies is that they believe in what your company does.

“That’s a reason to use LinkedIn company pages to talk about what your company does, and what missions people will be on when they work for your company. Those components of your culture are key to hiring.”

The PPP programme was a cornerstone initiative of the Aquino administration. Its aim was to tap private sector support in moving badly needed infrastructure projects forward.

Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade nevertheless noted that the government needed to do more to streamline the process. The Department of Transportation accounts for the biggest share of PPPdeals.

“The general plan is that rules on the PPP will have to be revisited,” Tugade told reporters in a briefing on Friday.

He said this would also cover qualification requirements, which needed to be simplified. He noted that this would make the process faster and also promote an environment of “inclusion” for interested bidders.

“What normally takes two to three years before, hopefully we can do that in a much shorter time,” Tugade said.

The PPP programme underwent birthing pains early on, but eventually played an important role in getting 12 projects worth about P200 billion, including big-ticket railway and airport deals, awarded to the private sector following reforms.

The PPP Center is led by its executive director Andre Palacios. He replaced its longtime chief Cosette Canilao, who stepped down last March 8. President Duterte has not named any replacement for Palacios.

“For future projects, we can speed up bidding and implementation by improving the rules so contractual obligations are clearly and properly apportioned between the [transportation department] and its attached agencies,” Palacios said.

He added that the department could soon act on PPP deals currently under procurement for “immediate results without need of revising any rules.”

Of the 12 awarded projects under the Aquino administration, only 11 would be moving forward. The modernization of the Philippine Orthopedic Center would no longer push through after the winning bidder terminated the deal following long delays on the government’s side.

The awarded PPP deals were the MCX or Muntinlupa Cavite Expressway (formerly DaangHari-SLEx Link Road), PPP for school infrastructure project (Phase 1), Naia Expressway project, PPP for school infrastructure project (Phase II), the automatic fare collection system, the Mactan-Cebu International Airport, the Light Rail Transit Line 1 Cavite Extension, the integrated transport system-Southwest project, the Cavite Laguna Expressway, the ITS-South project, and the Bulacan bulk water supply project.

Of those, the MCX, both school infrastructure projects and the AFCS, which paved the way for the Beep card at the MRT-3 and LRT-1 and LRT-2, have been completed.

Palacios said in a text message over the weekend that he supported plans to revise the PPP rules.

The Ministry takes note of today’s newspaper reports stating that one or more of the alleged perpetrators of the Bangladeshi terror attacks had possibly studied at a private university in Malaysia at some point in time,” said Monday’s statement.

“The Ministry considers this a serious matter and will investigate as well as work together with relevant enforcement agencies on this,” it added.

In an earlier statement, Monash University Malaysia said authorities had yet to contact them over a suspect involved in the Dhaka attacks, alleged to be one of its alumni.

“Over the weekend we became aware through social media discussions that some of the alleged perpetrators of the Bangladeshi terror attacks had reportedly at one time studied at Monash Malaysia as well as attending other universities and schools,” Monash University Malaysia spokesman Dr Susheela Nair said in a statement.

The University has not received, nor seen, any official confirmation from authorities as to the identity of the attackers, only media reports and social media discussions. Today the University met with Malaysian authorities to discuss these reports,” said Dr Susheela.

“The University is of course deeply saddened by news of the terror attack in Bangladesh and is assisting authorities with their investigations. Monash Malaysia will provide updates when further information is available,” she added.

On Friday night, seven so-called Islamic State (IS) militants killed 22 people including two police officers at a Western-styled café in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Six gunmen were shot dead by security forces during the siege at the Holey Artisan Bakery cafe.

One of the hostage-takers was taken alive and is now being interrogated by Bangladeshi authorities.

One of the dead gunmen had purportedly studied commerce at Monash Malaysia.

Yeo Hiap Seng (YHS) announced on Thursday that it had lost the exclusive bottling agreement with drinks giant PepsiCo, ending a link that began in 1975.

Malaysian beverage and dairy manufacturer Etika Beverages, formerly known as Permanis, will be PepsiCo’s new exclusive bottling partner serving both Singapore and Malaysian markets starting Nov 1.

The company already has an exclusive PepsiCo franchise in Malaysia for more than 40 years to bottle, sell and distribute drinks such as Pepsi, Mirinda, 7-Up, Mountain Dew, Sting Energy Drink and the Tropicana, Lipton and Gatorade ranges.

“We are delighted to extend our relationship with (Etika) to this important market,” a PepsiCo spokesman said. PepsiCo has had a successful partnership with Yeo Hiap Seng, the spokesman added.

PepsiCo and YHS will continue to work together until the conclusion of its existing commercial arrangements on Oct 31.

But PepsiCo is not severing its links with Singapore. It is building its first local plant in Jurong West. Scheduled to be completed early next year, it will manufacture concentrate for its beverage brands across the Asia Pacific region.

The Straits Times understands it has several hundred workers and is in the process of hiring 100 more.

The new bottling deal with Etika Beverages is expected to generate more cost savings and economies of scale for PepsiCo.

RHB analyst Goh Han Peng said yesterday: “The Malaysian operation is a much bigger one for PepsiCo, so there is some synergy in bringing the two territories under one bottler. Operating efficiency will be higher while rentals and labour are much cheaper.”

The termination of the YHS deal with PepsiCo marks the end of a long history where Coke and Pepsi were both bottled by Singapore companies. Fraser & Neave (F&N) had produced, bottled and sold Coca-Cola’s drinks in Malaysia for 75 years while Coca-Cola did the same for F&N in Singapore.

The expiry of that agreement in 2011 allowed F&N to develop its own carbonated soft drinks like bestseller 100Plus isotonic drink.

“When F&N berhad lost the Coke distribution rights, that had a greater impact as the Coke business accounted for more than 20 per cent of overall revenues,” Mr Goh said.

“But F&N then had the opportunity to develop its own brand of carbonated and uncarbonated drinks, which mitigated the loss of the Coke franchise.”

In comparison, YHS is less dependent on the PepsiCo bottling business because its products are well diversified across different geographies, and its own branded beverage sales are large in comparison to that generated from PepsiCo, he said.

Deputy Head of Construction Ministry’s Department of House and Real Estate Market Management, Trinh Truong Son, said the remaining 80 per cent of workers at industrial zones have to rent houses at an average cost of between 300,000-400,000 Vietnamese dong (US$13.4-18) per month.

Meanwhile, most of houses rented by workers are small (about 2-3sq.m per person), with poor sanitary conditions and infrastructure, affecting the health and well-being of workers, he said.

He noted that their average wage of 4 million dong ($179) per month could only meet 78-83 per cent of their basic spending needs.

Kenichi Hashimoto, head of a Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA) research team which carried out a survey at more than 100 industrial zones in Viet Nam, said the majority of space, design and location of housing for workers was not appropriate. At the same time, local authorities are barely able to support the workers and the workers themselves cannot afford to buy housing.

The poor sanitary conditions and housing infrastructure, he said, were among the key factors for the failure of industrial zones to keep skilled workers.

The slow improvement of living conditions resulted in workers quitting their jobs, reducing Viet Nam’s competitiveness with neighbouring countries, he said.

The national social housing development strategy, which plans to develop social housing for workers at industrial zones during the 2016-2020 period, clearly states that around 70 per cent of workers at industrial zones need accommodations, Son said.

Addressing the workshop, held to announce the results of a study on improving living conditions for workers around industrial zones, Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Van Trung said industrial zones in Vietnam generate jobs for more than 2.6 million workers.

However, he said, many problems have emerged in the development of industrial zones, including less attention paid to the improvement of workers’ living conditions.

Based on its study, JICA experts suggested some measures to help develop housing for workers, including reducing interest rates for workers’ loans to below 5 per cent over a period of more than 20 years.

The State should also provide support in land use fees and technical infrastructure construction while businesses should offer workers financial assistance to help them rent houses, they said.

Viet Nam should have new policies on space and design planning to help workers afford housing projects, increasing support for investors and implementing models of providing financial assistance for high-quality for-rent houses, they said.

Deputy Head of Construction Ministry’s Department of House and Real Estate Market Management, Son, said it was necessary to continue finalising related regulations on social housing development for workers and requiring industrial zone development planning to include basic social and technical infrastructure, such as houses for workers.

Localities should also put social housing development in their socio-economic development plans, he said.

Yang Berhormat Dato Paduka Hj Ali Hj Apong said Guangxi Hiseaton Foods will partner with a government-linked company to operate an offshore aquaculture farm in the coastal waters of Pelong Rocks later this year.

“(The JV) is not only limited to an offshore aquaculture farm, but also a hatchery, a processing factory as well as a research and development centre,” the minister said on the sidelines of a Nuzul Al-Quran celebration last week.

The joint venture, which will be known as Hiseaton Fisheries (B) Sdn Bhd, will bring in juvenile fish from China before raising and processing them here.

YB Dato Hj Ali said the United States and Middle East are being eyed as export markets for the aquaculture products. He added that the research and development centre that will be established will focus on conducting research trials on larval fish rearing. The research will test the feasibility of larval golden pompano rearing in Brunei and will also include trials for fish feed as the JV also aims to manufacture their own fish feed in the future, the minister said.

The government and Hiseaton Fisheries signed a tenancy agreement for the JV to operate the research and development centre in Meragang.

Director of Hiseaton Fisheries (B) Sdn Bhd Liu Xi Lei and Acting Director of Fisheries Department Abdul Halidi Salleh signed the agreement at the Ministry of Primary Resources and Tourism. The minister went on to say that the JV is expected to create about 100 jobs and will occupy 2,000 hectares of the country’s offshore aquaculture sites.

“This is one of the ways the country can diversify its economy and hopefully with this big aquaculture company coming, it will spur more investors to come to Brunei,” he said.

YB Dato Hj Ali added that the sultanate currently has 16,000 hectares of offshore aquaculture sites available, which is being opened for proposals to local and international investors including a 4,624-hectare site at Littledale Shoals.

Chinese Ambassador to Brunei Yang Jian recently told The Brunei Times that the joint venture is one of the projects under the Brunei-Guangxi Economic Corridor (BGEC). The BGEC was established in 2014 as a direct supply chain link aimed at boosting trade and investment between the two places.

“There are many projects that are being discussed under the BGEC but so far only the fishery project (the JV) has gone through but I know that the government officials and business circles on both sides are in close contact with each other,” she said.

She added that the Guangxi province is also looking at the possibility of starting a small industrial park in the sultanate similar to the Kuantan Industrial Park that they established in Malaysia.

“During the China-Asean Expo in September this year, the two sides will have the chance to meet again (and) we hope to see good results from the meeting,” she said.