Categories
Economics

[1428] Of issue with Mavtrac

The Malaysian government has set up a special purpose vehicle to provide manufacturers related to the implementation of the Ninth Malaysia Plan with reliable supply of resources, hopefully, cheaply:

THE government has set up a special purpose vehicle to directly bulk-buy building materials from manufacturers at fair prices so as to facilitate timely implementation of Ninth Malaysia Plan (9MP) projects.

This is in response to the repeated appeals by contractors that rising prices in steel bars and cement are hampering execution of government construction jobs.

To be launched this Friday by Finance Minister II Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop, Mavtrac Sdn Bhd will deal with steel bars, cement, diesel, bitumen, sand, agregrates, copper and aluminium. Mavtrac is parked under UEM Group Bhd and is wholly owned by Khazanah Nasional Bhd. [Mavtrac to help smoothen path for 9th Plan projects. Business Times. October 31 2007]

This sounds like a good idea; it is very much like the Australian model to provide discounted drugs to Australians which I have suggested for adoption by the Malaysian health system in hope of avoiding inefficient subsidies. Perhaps it is not too much to identity such entity as a benevolent monopoly. There is however one major difference between the former and the latter models — the latter is not an SPV.

One issue looms though: the goal of bulk-discount may encourage oversupply of resources in the local economy. The bias of buy, buy, buy is clearly visible. That however may not be the greatest danger: if ever, prices are to fall in the face of growing unsold inventories, who are going to purchase those inventories?

But with the Chinese economy at high speed moving forward, maybe one does not have to be overly worried. Mavtrac could always offer those resources to someone outside of the scope of the Ninth Malaysia Plan.

Or maybe, because Khazanah Nasional is behind it, one does not need to worry at all…

As far as I know, this is the second wholly-owned subsidiary of Khazanah. The first is an entity responsible to improve the local agricultural supply chain, which, I will leave to you to find out by yourselves.

Categories
Pop culture

[1427] Of Weeeezeerrrr

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Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

p/s — YouTube disabled embedding for this particular video. So, it will not appear here. Sigh…

Categories
History & heritage

[1426] Of from the Srivijayan mandala to the Malaysian federation

It strikes me as odd that the most successful federations throughout history of Southeast Asia centered around the Strait of Malacca. Those federations include Srivijaya, Negeri Sembilan, the Federated Malay States, Malaya and later Malaysia. I am unaware of any other federation that exist outside the link between Srivijaya and Malaysia. Is there something about the people of this area that prefer a federated form of government instead of unitary states?

At first glance, I think culture and other deterministic factors like tried form of governance which later reinforced local culture are the answers. I would really love to visit it soon. I find it hard to resort to coincidence; coincidence sounds like a lazy man’s answer.

In the meantime, I would appreciate if you, dear readers, could offer your thoughts on the matter.

Categories
Activism Environment Photography

[1425] Of before you go…

This subsiding weekend is one of few which routines were delightfully broken. I was at the Malaysian Nature Society-managed Kuala Selangor Nature Park to celebrate its 20th anniversary with friends.

I stayed there and the accommodation was surprising comfortable given my initial expectation. I guess, if one had expected the worst, almost anything would surpass that expectation; I brought a sleeping bag with me but it was an unnecessary burden. Or maybe, I had a full day and I could hardly notice anything to complain about.

One of the first activities were tree planting but several groups and one of them represented ExxonMobil. I am unsure how over a thousand sapling planted would offset Exxon’s carbon emissions but at least something, eh?

There is a walkway from a man-made coastal bund into the mangrove swamp which the saplings were planted. Anybody that wishes to take a walk into the swamp via the walkway will notice this:

Some rights reserved.

I will share more photos later but for now, I hate Monday; I should have taken my leave.

Categories
Solar car

[1424] Of I hate Stanford

Why?

For what they did to the UM Solar Car Team:

In the first hour of racing today, Continuum has had an accident. Spencer Bailey was the driver of Continuum, and aside from a small scratch on his leg, he is perfectly fine. After the Stanford Solar Car Team passed our Team, they stopped abruptly, causing our lead driver to stop, and Continuum to hit our lead vehicle.

As for the car, the concentrator canopy is cracked in multiple places and will be replaced with our spare. The front of the car will need to be repaired and the front solar modules replaced. There was also delamination seen in some of the front bulkheads. [Continuum Accident. The University of Michigan Solar Car Team Blog. October 20 2007]

From Stanford’s point of view:

Starting out from Darwin was incredibly hectic, They started solarcars every minute, however, the officials didn’t let the rest of the caravan vehicles know when to leave, so we had to fight though all the other teams out of a parking lot, being blocked by 3 or 4 vehicles for the FH Bochum team (large vans filled with lots and lots of Germans) waiting at the exit for their solarcar and blocking traffic. When Ryan pulled out of the starting line with Equinox, he ended up driving a good 10 minutes unprotected by our lead and chase vehicles through the busy streets of darwin. We ended up catching up with our solarcar as it was sitting in an intersection in the middle of traffic. Incidentally, about a minute after we passed through, University of Michigan’s car had some kind of accident and ended up running into lead and effectively putting them out of the race, which is really too bad, as this year’s team is loads and loads more friendly and outgoing than previous years, at least that’s what we hear. (for an event attended by mostly male engineers, there’s a surprising amount of gossiping that goes on at WSC). [WSC Day 1. Stanford Solar Car. October 21 2007]

Further:

I asked about the incident with Michigan and was told that the Stanford convoy never came to a stop and claims no culpability in the collision between their lead vehicle and their solar car. Their race observer agrees. Michigan has started up again and seems to be passing by teams that have even had a day’s head start. We all hope that the race officials grant them a clock reset. [Finally, a call from Australia. Stanford Solar Car Project. October 22 2007]

If you go to Stanford’s blog, seems like they have issues with Michigan. (Stanford friends, I still love you guys!)

Anyway, Michigan finishes 7th because of the accident. Michigan started the race with a clear goal of finishing better than third; Michigan has finished the race third three times but well, seven is better than not finishing at all. As for Stanford, they failed to finish the race. They suffered a terrible accident; the car rolled over! I am glad nobody was hurt.