- Securities Commission Malaysia to Implement Anti-Corruption Action Plan
- PM calls on Malaysians to Make Visit Malaysia 2020 a national mission
- Malaysia can expect more investments from US companies
- NPLs of hawkers, small traders rise to 98 pct
- 45 injured after mob attack at Hong Kong MTR station
- India launches rocket to the moon on second attempt
Securities Commission Malaysia to Implement Anti-Corruption Action Plan
The Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) will be implementing an action plan with the main objectives of supporting the National Anti-Corruption Plan (2019-2023) (NACP) and with the view to improve Malaysia’s ranking in the biennial Corporate Governance Watch survey by the Asian Corporate Governance Association. The SC presented its action plan to the Cabinet Special Committee on Anti Corruption (JKKMAR) chaired by Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad last week, with recommendations to strengthen the standards of corporate governance to prevent corruption, misconduct and fraud. JKKMAR approved the SC’s recommendations to require listed companies to put in place anti-corruption measures, and for the SC to develop a framework to promote the effective discharge of directors’ responsibilities. JKKMAR also agreed that several other measures proposed by the SC are to be discussed further with the Debt Management Office. In view of the coming into force of the corporate liability provision in the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission Act 2009 in June 2020, the SC urges listed companies to prepare themselves and take the necessary measures to establish an effective anticorruption framework in line with the Guidelines on Adequate Procedures. Based on the SC’s review as at 31 May 2019, only 59% of listed companies have an anti-corruption policy, and majority of these policies contain gaps when compared to the Guidelines on Adequate Procedures.
Make Visit Malaysia 2020 a national mission – PM
Prime Minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad wants all Malaysians to make the ‘Visit Malaysia 2020’ tourism promotion a national mission. He said everyone had a role to play in the Visit Malaysia 2020 campaign where the government would ensure that the campaign becomes a catalyst for achieving targets set under the Malaysia Tourism Transformation Plan. “Our hospitality must not be merely a slogan but translated into the nature and culture of our people. “The beauty of a place will attract but the hospitality will make people stay and return,” he said at the launch of the Visit Malaysia 2020 campaign logo at the KL International Airport (KLIA). Tun Dr Mahathir said tourism is one of the most important sectors to ensure the country’s economic and service sector growth as it is not only able to generate income but also provide employment. “It is hoped that the Visit Malaysia 2020 campaign will succeed in its target of 30 million international tourist arrivals and RM100 billion tourist receipts,” he said. He added that increasing flight connectivity from other destinations to Malaysia is one of the initiatives to boost arrivals into Malaysia and meet the campaign targets. Dr Mahathir said Malaysia’s tourism industry has continued to grow from strength to strength and the tourism sector showed impressive performance recently. For the first five months of this year, tourist arrivals recorded a growth of 4.8 per cent with 10.95 million tourist arrivals compared with 10.45 million tourist arrivals in the corresponding period last year, he said. The first-quarter performance of this year also showed growth in tourism revenue which reached RM21.4 billion, a surge of 16.9 per cent compared to the same period the year before, he said. Last year, some 25.8 million tourists visited Malaysia, and Malaysia secured 15th place among countries with the highest number of tourist arrivals, he said. A total of 78.2 million domestic tourists were recorded in 2018 with a growth of 10.9 per cent from the previous year, while domestic tourism expenditure registered a growth of 11.7 per cent in 2018 with RM60.4 billion, he said. Dr Mahathir said the number of employees engaged in the tourism industry has also increased, to 3.4 million in 2017 from 1.5 million in 2005, while the number of people employed in the tourism industry made up 23.2 per cent of the total labour force. “Malaysia ranked No. 21 among countries with the highest tourism revenue, bringing in RM84.1 billion in tourism revenue in 2018 as stated in the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) in its Barometer Report published in May 2019,” he said.
Malaysia can expect more investments from US companies
The Ministry of International Trade and Industry said Malaysia can expect more investment opportunities from the US-based companies amid the ongoing US-China trade war. Deputy Minister Dr Ong Kian Ming said many US companies, especially in the electric and electronic (E&E) sector, were currently in talks to increase their investments in the country, including Penang. “After my discussion with 10 E&E players, I believe Penang, which has the right ecosystem, will also attract new players besides increasing investments from the existing ones,” he told reporters. Dr Ong said many of the existing E&E companies in the country were suppliers to the US multinational companies (MNC). The existing players that had expanded their production capacity before the US-China trade war were now benefiting from it, said Dr Ong. He said the government was also targeting to attract more MNCs to set up global business services (GBS) in the country. “Many (MNCs) will look at Singapore to set up their GBS but we want to attract these companies to set up here, including in Penang which already has a few large GBS such as Swarovski and Tesla,” he said.
NPLs of hawkers, small traders rise to 98 pct
Non-performing loans (NPLs) involving hawkers and small traders through financing facilities under the supervision of the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs since 2013 have risen to 98 per cent. Its minister, Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said the loans disbursed under the ministry’s supervision since 2013 amounted to RM160.5 million to help small-time entrepreneurs develop their businesses. He said this at the National Hawkers and Small Traders Consultative Meeting in Kuala Lumpur. The meeting was attended by state executive council members in charge of hawkers and petty traders portfolio from all states and chairmen of hawkers and petty traders’ associations nationwide. “I told the leaders of the associations that the government, especially the Ministry of Finance, will take into account previous repayment records when introducing new loan schemes such as these in the future,” he told the media.
45 injured after mob attack at Hong Kong MTR station
At least 45 people were injured, with one person in critical condition, after a group of masked men attacked anti-government protesters and commuters at a Hong Kong train station on Sunday night according to the city’s hospital authorities. The group, many wielding sticks and clad in white T-shirts, flooded into a Mass Transit Railway (MTR) station in the rural Yuen Long district, storming a train and attacking passengers, according to footage taken by commuters and opposition lawmaker Lam Cheuk-ting. Eyewitnesses said they appeared to target black-shirted passengers who had been at an anti-government march and the attack came after several thousand activists surrounded China’s representative office in the city, later clashing with police.
India launches rocket to the moon on second attempt
- India on Monday launched a landmark spacecraft to land on the moon, in a bid to become only the fourth nation to achieve the feat. Chandrayaan-2 – Moon Chariot 2 – took off as scheduled at 2:43pm from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota, an island off the coast of southern Andhra Pradesh state. The launch came a week after a fuel leak forced the previous attempt to be postponed 56 minutes before blast-off. India is bidding to become just the fourth nation – after Russia, the United States and China– to land a spacecraft on the moon. The rocket is taking up an orbiter, a lander and a rover, and has been almost entirely designed and made in India. The 2.4-tonne orbiter is expected to circle the moon for about one year, taking images of the surface, looking for signs of water, and studying the atmosphere. The lander – named after Vikram A. Sarabhai, the father of India’s space programme – will carry the rover and be placed on the surface near the lunar South Pole. ISRO scientists will remotely control the rover named Pragyaan – “wisdom” in Sanskrit – as it carries out experiments. It will work for one lunar day, the equivalent of 14 Earth days, studying rocks and soil on the moon’s surface
