Why countries should develop infrastructure now

Although much of the world is hurting from pain slower growth, it's arguable, this may be one of the best times in the past decade to get construction projects going.

Steel prices, iron ore, crude oil are hitting record lows.  If you are a country which spent their time saving and waiting for the right moment to upgrade infrastructure, this is it.  China is deliberately scaling back growth and therefore raw materials of all sorts are in excess supply.

Malaysia might actually see the prices in steel drop dramatically lower, as well as the cost in constructing the MRT.  Either the price will drop or the companies involved will reap major profits.  Probably the companies involved will make the profits since in Malaysia a lot of these construction companies will just kick the profits back to certain government elites.

India has just kicked off a major rail road rebuilding project.  It's not hard to see why as steel prices are hitting all time lows.  India will reap the rewards of its rail road project in decades to come.

Infrastructure hasn't had it this good in a long time!

Tenaga's craazzzy earnings

From the Star:

Tenaga Nasional Bhd’s net profit for the first quarter ended Nov 30, 2014, rose 34.4% to RM2.352bil from RM1.75bil a year ago, thanks to the increase in tariff and sales in the Peninsula and Sabah. 

Sales in the Peninsula grew 3.3%, while in Sabah it was 2.4%, which was an additional boost to TNB given the tariff hike in January 2014 of 14.9% and 16.9% respectively.

 Up 34.4% making 600 mil more PROFIT than a year ago, on top of the ridiculous profit they are making now.   They are getting so much money they don't know what to do with it.  With this money, surely Integrax is going to ask for a higher offer.

Unfortunately, everyone is paying higher electricity bill charges.  Whoever sold stocks because of GST, Tenaga is just rolling over the GST problem like a small little pothole in the road.

Thoughts on high speed train travel, skybus might expand to Bandar Utama

The Business Times posted an interesting article on the skybus service possibly expanding its services to Bandar Utama and Sunway.

"We have ferried more than 4.5 million passengers since LCCT was opened on March 23 2006," he said.

After one-and-a half years of service, SkyBus - which is one of two LCCT bus service providers operating from KL Sentral - was appointed as budget airline AirAsia Bhd's official bus.

The tie-up has enabled AirAsia passengers to enjoy an online bus fare of RM6.50 for one-way trip, instead of the normal RM9 one-way ticket.

SkyBus is now looking at carrying passengers from Bandar Utama to LCCT.

Chris said the service will start in the second quarter this year.

He said the company has also received invitation letters from the management of Sunway Pyramid and Genting Theme Park as well as other bus terminals to transport budget airlines passenger from their terminals.

Currently, SkyBus controls 20 per cent of traffic to LCCT. With more routes being opened in Klang Valley, its market share its expected to increase.

I've taken the economical route of going to kl sentral, sitting on the bus to the LCCT, and taking one of Air Asia's cheap flights to Penang.

Basically it costs me RM9.00 for the bus, RM15 for the taxi, and some 60 bucks for the flight. So this comes out to about RM85 for the entire trip. Not only do we have to consider the financial impact, but the opportunity cost in time taken. We're talking about 3.5 hours for a trip to Penang which normally takes about 4 hours to drive, not a great bargain there. (1 hour bus ride, 30 min taxi ride, 1 hour flight wait, 1 hour travel time)

High speed trains have a couple of interesting advantages that I only realized because of how ridiculous the costs I paid to get to the the airport in terms of time and money spent.

First and foremost, the high speed trains will most likely stop right in the middle of the city, at KL Sentral, so the only extra cost paid for is the taxi ride to the station. The bus trip is cut out, saving some one hour of time. You get to the train station 30 min before, one hour later you are in Penang or Singapore. (20 min taxi ride, 30 min wait for train, 1 hour travel = 2 hours of time spent)

In Singpore the train would arrive at a more convenient location so you would save on time spent traveling from the Singapore airport to your place of abode. Taxi costs in Penang are also outrageous, so you would save on costs there as well.

High speed trains have their demand for places with a 1-2 hour flight time. A 3.5 hour ordeal to fly to Singapore or Penang is quite ridiculous given that it equates to roughly half a working day. On the other hand, 2 hour travel time for train is much more tolerable. People commute 1 hour to work anyways, what is an extra hour?