But the Republic’s popularity is likely to dip after the year 2020, as Middle Eastern destinations such as the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Oman catch up, the inaugural Ramadan Travel Report 2016 predicted.

Singapore’s consistent daytime temperatures and fasting duration – about 12 hours a day – makes it popular among Muslim travellers, alongside other destinations near the equator such as Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia.

But this advantage may not last, the study noted.

Ramadan is set to take place earlier in the year over the next 15 years, as it is based on the Islamic calendar which has a 12-month cycle revolving around 355 days. This means that every year, the fasting month advances by about 10 days. By 2023, Ramadan will fall during the cooler months in Middle Eastern countries, increasing these destinations’ appeal to travellers, the study noted.

“With Ramadan set to take place in cooler months from 2023, destinations in the Middle East… will become an attractive proposition for Muslim travellers, replacing Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore in the top few spots,” said the study, developed by payment firm MasterCard and Muslim travel consultancy CrescentRating.

Jordan, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia could also benefit from this trend, it added.

In 2030, Malaysia is the only South-east Asian country expected to retain a spot among the top five, due to its strong Muslim-friendly environment.

To maintain their popularity, South-east Asian countries should introduce more Muslim-friendly services such as having more halal food outlets and facilities to perform prayers, the study said.

A total of 50 destinations across the globe were analysed in the study and benchmarked across three criteria over the next 15 years until 2030. The criteria are average daytime temperature, fasting duration and scores on the Global Muslim Travel Index 2016, a separate study that ranked 130 destinations based on their Muslim-friendliness.

The study has named Singapore as the friendliest destination for Muslim travellers among non-Muslim countries for the past four years.

PCC said on Friday it would pursue a “comprehensive” review of the transaction to acquire San Miguel Corp.’s (SMC) telecommunications assets held through Vega Telecom.

“A comprehensive review includes a determination of the relevant market, whether there will be substantial changes to the market structure, and the potential impact of the transaction on public welfare,” the PCC said in a statement.

The development on Friday followed a more than week-long back and forth public tussle between the PCC and the PLDT-Globe telco duopoly that saw a stern warning from the regulator and the resubmission of transaction notices for the deal that was announced to the public last May 30.

“We assessed the new submissions of the parties, and based on the totality of information available to us, including public statements made by the parties, we believe there is a basis to conduct this review by virtue of the powers granted to the Philippine Competition Commission by the Philippine Competition Act,” the PCC said in its statement.

Globe general counsel Froilan Castelo said the firm would need to internally discuss options moving forward while PLDT did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Both companies earlier raised the possibility of filing a legal suit against the PCC.

PLDT and Globe said the deal was deemed approved under the PCC’s own memorandum circular No. 16-002. The circular detailed the treatment of deals that occurred after the effectivity of the competition law but before the effectivity of its implementing rules and regulations.

The SMC telco acquisition was sealed on May 30, days before the June 3 publishing of the law’s IRR, which would still take effect after 15 days, or by June 20 this year.

PLDT and Globe said they already filed the required deal notices under the PCC circular and that the transaction can no longer be challenged by the regulator.

However, the PCC said on Friday the circulars it issued were “transitory in nature and do not dilute the authority of the PCC to conduct substantive review under PCA, especially where national interest and public policy require it.”

Born between the era of humongous mobile phones and the incorporation of Google (1998), this gang blinked their way into adulthood surrounded by breakthroughs in consumer technologies.

Sociologists in the University of Sydney discovered last year that Gen Y takes no pride in this distinction.

Gen Y live in debt. Gen Y are clueless. Gen Y are in a dilemma. Gen Y are cheap. Prognostications that pound the younglings abound, and according to Pricewaterhouse-Coopers’ (PWC) 2014 survey on working Malaysian millennials, the stereotyping includes “the compulsive need to change jobs and employers frequently, the expectation that organisations need to impress them instead of the other way around, and an attitude that sometimes smirks of entitlement”.

Rant and rave as Gen X and Baby Boomers want, however, these 20-30-somethings are the heirs of the future, which brings up a point in Penang’s future that affects them: the Penang Transport Master Plan (PTMP).

By 2023, the first phase of Penang’s first light rail transit – the Bayan Lepas LRT – is targeted to be operational and its final phase ready by 2031. The total implementation of PTMP, covering LRT, monorails, tram, bus rapid transits, catamarans, e-bus, highways and junction improvements, are plotted until 2065.

The Bayan Lepas LRT will be about 30km long from Komtar to the south of the island. It will have a total of 27 stations with the alignment passing through the densest southeastern areas, including the free industrial zone and the airport.

Another decade or so after that, more monorails are planned from Tanjung Tokong and Air Itam to Komtar and even an LRT line that will run over the sea and connect the island and the mainland.

Way before then, the current 40-50-something Gen Xs will have retired and Baby Boomers will all but fade into history. Going by the timeline, the sole beneficiaries of PTMP are primarily the Gen Y and their progeny.

The environmental pluses that an efficient public transport system brings along seems to sit well with them. In the PWC survey on them, a whopping 86% want to work in a place that values environmental friendliness and such like, and 77percent said they would consider resigning if their employers cast a blind eye on issues of sustainability and climate change.

“It would be great to have an LRT on the island,” chirped Great Eastern insurance agent Shahnon Ooi, 28, proudly adding that she is a penang kia (Hokkien for Penang child).

Ooi speaks from experience. She spent three months in Taiwan as a university exchange student, riding a full-frame bicycle from her guesthouse every day to catch a bus that has racks for her to hang up her bike inside. “I was issued a bike as soon as I arrived,” she recalled.

She visited Singapore several times, making full use of the republic’s sprawling network of mass rail transit lines. Last year, she spent 10 days in Japan, hopping about in bullet trains and the Tokyo subways to her heart’s content.

She also spent eight years in Universiti Putra Malaysia to get her degree in biology and then as a research assistant till she earned her master’s degree in animal physiology and had regularly used KTM Komuter.

After coming home and changing careers, however, Ooi finds herself verily shackled to her car’s steering wheel.

“I am in my car a lot now! When I move around to serve my clients’ insurance needs, I sometimes think about the trains in Japan. They are so efficient.”

The yearly reported average delay of Japanese bullet trains is about 30 seconds. On the rare occasions when a train is late by five minutes or more, the conductors will bow their apologies to everyone on board, train car by train car, and issue delay certificates to every passenger so that they will not need to explain their lateness at wherever it is they are heading to.

“All developed places have trains. Even the Klang Valley. Penang is small but if it has a good train network, moving about will be so easy and cheap,” she said.

Another Gen Y on the other end of the spectrum is bicycle commuter Loke See Mun, 25. She did the math and did not want the burden of a car loan after joining the working society as an assistant corporate secretary, armed with a degree in business administration. Penang has an entrenched bicycle commuting culture, so she easily embraced the world’s cheapest and greenest mode of transport.

“I have been bike commuting in Penang for nearly three years and I want everyone to know it is safe, fun and you stay in shape without needing a gym. Penang is so small. Most people live less than 10km from their workplaces and a distance like that takes only about 30 minutes to cycle.

“I am for the Bayan Lepas LRT, but only if they let me bring my bike into the train. If I combine my bike with train rides, I will have no use for a car in Penang unless I need to carry something large,” she said.

Loke’s abstinence from fossil fuel, however, is not shared by her peers. Deloitte’s 2014 survey on Gen Y and cars covering 19 countries found that 75% of them plan on getting a car within five years. This finding matches current stats from the Road Transport Department and the Automobile Association of Malaysia.

Penang has an average of 1.4 cars and motorcycles per person based on Penang’s population in 2013. The vehicle registration growth rate here is 7% based on JPJ’s statistics, while the population growth rate is only 2%.

So to meet the growth rate until such time that the upgraded public transport system attains 40% modal share (percentage of trips via public transport), a crucial component of the PTMP being planned is a highway from Gurney Drive till the 2nd Bridge of the island passing through Paya Terubong called the Pan Island Link 1.

George Town will be a lot more relaxing with this 20km combination of elevated roads and tunnels running along the foothills because motorists from the north going to the airport will not need to cut through the city anymore.

So all this – costing over RM27bil – is for a social strata that has also been dubbed Generation Me or the Boomerang Generation (because they tend to swing back to live with their parents after facing too many financial difficulties) that is said to focus more on extrinsic values, are pampered, a little delusional and cannot live without their smartphones.

Being reminded of these supposed Gen Y traits got a huff from Loke during the interview.

“If only my seniors can remember that when they were young, they were called brash and fickle, too. My grandparents complain that my parents never listened to good advice when they were kids. Our generation may depend more on technology than our parents did but it doesn’t mean we are weaker or lousier. I think the future will be more challenging for us than it had been for the older generation because technology makes life faster. So it’s good to have something like the PTMP for the future,” said Loke.

He drew the interest of his young classmates, not because of his age or disability, but because their teachers have been referring to him as someone who should be emulated.

Caliboso works as a farm caretaker for a Hawaii-based relative in a village here, where he plants vegetables which he sells at the local market.

So he sold his vegetables at fixed prices of 20 Philippine pesos (43 cents) and 50 Philippine pesos (US$1.08), the bills which he is most familiar with. To avoid having to deal with weighing scales, which he could also not understand, Caliboso sold his vegetables in bundles instead of per kilogram.

Caliboso had migrated here from Abulug town in Cagayan province.

His relatives in Hawaii promised to finance his schooling, so he worked up the courage to enroll in Grade 1 at Amarosa (the name is an acronym of the villages of Apaya, Mangato and Sta. Rosa).

Although Caliboso wanted to be unnoticed in class, he became the most visible student on the first day of school.

The school principal, Joel Remigio, welcomed students by pointing to Caliboso, saying the 40-year-old Grade 1 student should serve as an inspiration.

Remigio said Caliboso is the first adult to enroll in Grade 1 in the school. He asked other students to treat “Kuya Jay” with respect and discouraged them from making fun of him.

“Despite his age, we know he has the will to learn,” Remigio said, adding that the school had assigned a highly competent teacher to handle Caliboso’s class.

Caliboso need not stick around with very young children in the future, however.

The Accreditation and Equivalency Programme of the Department of Education allows adults like Caliboso to take the Philippine Educational Placement Test, which will determine if he is qualified for grade level acceleration.

This programme has been designed for out-of-school youths who return to the formal school system.

Like most students in the city, Caliboso went to school at 7:30am on Monday for what was described as a smooth school opening.

Despite controversy and serious concerns from human rights activists regarding gender inequality, the province enforced the law in 2014 after approving the Islamic criminal code of Qanun Jinayat, which obliges all people in Aceh, including non-Muslims, to abide by the official moral standards. Some of the rules included in the bylaw include the enforcement of body-covering clothes for Muslim women, and caning as a punishment for a variety of crimes, including sexual acts considered immoral.

However, don’t let the province’s strict laws stop you from visiting Aceh as a tourist. Here are the basic things you must know so you are prepared for your Aceh trip.

Hijab

Since 98 percent of Aceh residents are Muslim, most of the women you’ll see there cover their heads. But if you’re a traveling non-Muslim, Aceh Sharia Police will give you an exception, as long as you’re a foreigner and able to show your identity as proof that you’re a non-Muslim.

This exception also applies to Aceh’s Chinese and non-Muslim residents. Female Muslim tourists who don’t wear a hijab are also allowed, as long as they wear modest clothing. Muslim residents who don’t have their heads covered will have their hair forcibly cut by officials.

No shorts

Save your hot pants for Bali and instead wear long loose trousers in the Islamic province. Wearing long pants is allowed by Sharia, as long as they are not fitted or jeans, because these types of trousers are considered too tight as they can reveal a women’s body shape.

This particular aspect of Sharia came into effect in 2009.

Raids

Banda Aceh city has implemented a curfew that doesn’t allow businesses like restaurants or cafes to serve women after 11 p.m. in order to decrease sexual harassment. In addition, officials also hold raids to check whether residents are complying with the official moral standards or not, including checking if women are wearing appropriate clothes.

In the province, religious police officers often stop vehicles, including motorbikes. If you are stopped by a patrol or raid, just show your ID to prove that you’re a foreigner visiting the province.

Visiting Baiturrahman mosque

A visit to this historical and religious landmark is a must. As well as its amazing colonial-style architecture, the mosque was the only building that survived the tsunami that struck the city in 2006.

If you visit the mosque, wear appropriate all-covering Muslim clothing. Don’t wear fitted pants or jeans. But don’t worry if you don’t have any, the mosque officials will provide you with a tunic to cover up your body.

The quarterly survey on business sentiment recorded an overall score of 51.9, up 3.8 per cent from the all-time low of 50 recorded in the last quarter.

It was also the first increase in the index score in seven straight quarters.

Of the six sectors surveyed, sentiment improved the most among the transport or storage sector, which recorded an increase of 2.2 per cent compared with last quarter, followed by business services sentiment score, which went up 1.9 per cent quarter on quarter.

Most sub-indices in the survey conducted by the Singapore Business Federation (SBF) and DP Information Group racked up higher scores, SBF chief executive Ho Meng Kit said.

“The profitability, business expansion and hiring expectation indices saw increases of more than 4 per cent from the previous quarter,” he added.

“SMEs are still indicating expansion when it comes to turnover expectations, business expansion expectations, capital investment expectations, hiring expectations and capacity utilisation expectations. These are good signs as they reflect optimism in the short term shown by SMEs.”

In terms of profitability, expectations were the highest in the business services, retail and food and beverage sectors.

The business services sector was the most keen to take on more staff, with its hiring expectation score up 8.8 per cent quarter on quarter.

But even as sentiment improved across the board, SMEs are “not out of the woods yet”, Ho warned.

“We note that on a year-on-year basis, the SME index is the lowest since we started the index in 2009. Therefore, we remain cautiously optimistic in terms of our outlook,” he said, urging SMEs to leverage on the government measures that support financing, training and technology upgrades.

The somewhat-upbeat survey results came as economists polled by the Monetary Authority of Singapore this week trimmed their forecast for economic growth this year from 1.9 per cent to 1.8 per cent.

The United States Federal Reserve has also cut its US growth estimate from 2.2 per cent to 2 per cent.

In China, May’s exports slipped 4.1 per cent year on year, suggesting that external demand outlook is still fragile and headwinds yet persist for growth in Asia.

NTU launched a joint corporate laboratory with Taiwanese electronics firm Delta Electronics yesterday which will work on developing cyber-physical systems – where all kinds of physical objects are connected to and controlled through the Internet, and which is also known as the Internet of Things (IoT).

The US$33 million Delta-NTU Corporate Laboratory for Cyber-Physical Systems will focus on four areas: manufacturing, learning, living and product commercialisation.

This can eventually be applied in smart factories, for instance. With such a system in place, factories may be able to make use of autonomous drones or driverless forklifts to ferry materials or goods from one part of the building to another.

The laboratory is funded equally between NTU, Delta Electronics and the National Research Foundation (NRF).

It is the eighth laboratory under the NRF’s CorporateLaboratory@University scheme, which aims to further collaboration between universities and private companies with a focus on applied research.

Speaking at the laboratory’s launch at the NTU campus yesterday, Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said the university’s proximity to the upcoming Jurong Innovation District will help researchers and entrepreneurs share and spread knowledge faster and easier.

“There are many advantages that come from interactions between researchers, engineers and entrepreneurs,” said Tharman, who is also Coordinating Minister for Economic and Social Policies. “When you put such people together in close proximity, things happen.”

The laboratory will also be looking into further advances in smart homes, which can be outfitted with sensors that can keep track of the elderly or have medical conditions.

These can notify doctors or caregivers should anything happen to the home’s inhabitants.

The laboratory will be poised to take advantage of the growth in IoT, said Delta Electronics chairman Yancey Hai.

“There are limitless applications in IoT that will transform current products and services, which (will lead) to explosive commercial growth in diverse sectors.”

The Delta-NTU Corporate Laboratory will be NTU’s fourth such partnership. The university’s other corporate laboratory partners comprise engineering firms Rolls Royce and ST Engineering, as well as transport operator SMRT.

The laboratory will comprise university academics, students and Delta employees, which will lead to greater collaboration and research opportunities, said NTU president Bertil Andersson.

“When the Delta-NTU Corporate Lab is running at full capacity, it will have over 80 researchers and staff, of whom 30 will be NTU PhD students,” said Professor Andersson.

“Not only do our students gain valuable exposure to their chosen fields, but they also get a head start in networking with the best in the industry,” he added.

Similar confirmation was also given by the airline’s general affairs director, Edward Sirait.

Indonesian airlines had been banned from European airports since 2007, the same year that US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) downgraded the country’s aviation safety to category 2, stating that the country lacked regulations necessary to oversee air carriers in accordance with minimum international safety standards.

The ban on national flag carrier Garuda Indonesia was lifted years ago and it now flies to London, among other cities.

In a statement issued Wednesday, the transition team of incoming Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez said Duterte’s economic development team would meet with more than 300 business leaders in Davao City on June 20-21 at a consultative workshop called “Sulong Pilipinas: Hakbang Tungo sa Kaunlaran (Move Forward, Philippines: A Step Toward Prosperity).” The workshop is co-organised by the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Mindanao Business Council.

At the two-day consultative meeting, Dominguez will present the proposed 10-point economic agenda aimed at addressing the challenges to inclusive growth; while incoming Economic Planning Secretary and National Economic and Development Authority Director-General Ernesto M. Pernia will talk about the country’s economic health. The “21st century-style town hall meeting” will be moderated by incoming Department of Finance spokesperson Paola Alvarez.

Duterte is expected to grace the dialogue, as he is scheduled to give a response on the recommendations to be generated from the consultation.

First on the list of the 10-point socioeconomic agenda was to “continue and maintain current macroeconomic policies, including fiscal, monetary and trade policies,” the draft conference agenda provided to reporters showed.

Also part of the socioeconomic roadmap were:

– Instituting progressive tax reform and more effective tax collection while indexing taxes to inflation, in line with the plan to submit to Congress a tax reform package by September

– Increasing competitiveness and the ease of doing business, drawing upon successful models used to attract business to local cities such as Davao, as well as pursuing the relaxation of the constitutional restrictions on foreign ownership, except with regards land ownership, in order to attract foreign direct investments;

– Accelerating annual infrastructure spending to account for 5 per cent of the gross domestic product, with public-private partnerships playing a key role

– Promoting rural and value chain development toward increasing agricultural and rural enterprise productivity and rural tourism

– Ensuring security of land tenure to encourage investments and address bottlenecks in land management and titling agencies

– Investing in human capital development, including health and education systems, as well as matching skills and training to meet the demands of businesses and the private sector

– Promoting science, technology and the creative arts to enhance innovation and creative capacity toward self-sustaining and inclusive development

– Improving social protection programs, including the government’s conditional cash transfer program, in order to protect the poor against instability and economic shocks

– Strengthening the implementation of the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Law to enable, especially, poor couples to make informed choices on financial and family planning.

The Duterte administration’s economic agenda “emphasizes the need to maintain accelerated economic growth while ensuring that gains are broadly shared by the Filipino people,” the statement read.

It was also “anchored on the long-term Filipino 2040 vision and the next medium-term Philippine Development Planning (PDP) cycle, both led by Neda,” it added, referring to the AmBisyon Natin 2040 vision.

Launched in March, AmBisyon Natin 2040 was aimed at tripling Filipinos’ per capita income to about $11,000 in 25 years, such that the Philippines would become a high-income country in 2040 by implementing prescribed policies.