Friday, November 5, 2010

Syabas atas liberalisasi Petronas

KUALA LUMPUR -- Malaysian state energy firm Petronas is to list its chemicals arm in a sale that could raise US$4.0 billion in Southeast Asia's biggest ever share offering, reports said Wednesday.

Petronas Chemicals Group is expected to list on the Malaysian stock exchange in November, Dow Jones Newswires said, citing a term sheet outlining the sale plan.

The offering would exceed the listing of Malaysia's top mobile operator, Maxis, which made a strong start on the bourse last November with a US$3.3 billion IPO that was then the region's largest.

Petronas' petrochemicals business includes 22 companies that produce chemical compounds, fertilizers, and industrial and specialty chemicals.

Petronas Chemicals' indicative institutional price is 5.20 ringgit (1.67 dollars) a share, Dow Jones said, citing sources familiar with the deal.

It said that some proceeds would be used to set up a fertilizer plant in eastern Malaysia on Borneo island.

The offering is part of Prime Minister Najib Razak's ambitious Economic Transformation Program (ETP), a blueprint to revitalize the economy over the next decade and achieve developed-nation status by 2020.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Govt must consider liberalising M’sia’s oil, gas sector: Dr Chua

By NG SI HOOI and TEH ENG HOCK

KUALA LUMPUR: The Government should consider liberalising the Malaysia’s oil and gas sector for the country to achieve accelerated growth, said MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek on Saturday.

He said the Government should also allow more of non-Bumiputra investors to be joint-venture partners, contractors and sub-contractors in areas such as exploration, platform constructions, logistics, deep-sea operations and others.

“Our oil and gas sector has reached a stage in which we are already an established player in the global stage. Yet the opportunities for the SMEs are still small compared to other countries including non-oil producing nations like Singapore.

“Therefore, given the maturity of the sector, the opening up of the sector will boost the country’s GDP by many folds,” he said at MCA’s Chinese Economic Congress at the Prince Hotel here on Saturday.

He said the telecommunication sector also needed to be fully liberalised as increased competition benefitted operators and consumers.

Dr Chua encouraged more GLCs to open their Board of Directors to include more non-Bumiputras as well as international expertise.

“It is important that GLCs open up their procurement system to include competitive SMEs based on the quality of service and products offered. Rather than based on race or equity requirement,” he said.

Dr Chua also called for greater transparency in the tendering process as closed tender systems had always been associated with corruption and kickbacks.

“We hope all public procurement is open to all local SMEs and they are provided with equal access and opportunities,” he said.

He said the party also called for the execution of a minimum wage policy on a sectoral and regional basis to accelerate the process of reducing the reliance on foreign labour.

No comments:

Post a Comment