Tech-based projects a drag on otherwise robust ETP
- Foundry project with seventy eight,000 month-to-month wafers output fails to get off floor because of insolvency case in Germany
1Malaysia e-mail nonetheless suffering to ring a bell with Malaysians, company leading it, Tricubes Bhd delisted
IT IS already years for the reason that Economic Transformation Program (ETP) kicked off with 131 Entry Point Projects or EPPs because the early fuel for the initiative to accelerate growth in Malaysia.
Since then, the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu) of the Prime Minister’s Department has recorded a complete of 152 EPPs regarding each the personal and public sectors, out of which 149 tasks had been introduced with a complete dedicated funding of RM212 billion.
[RM1 = US$0.33]
There had been many examples that Pemandu chief government officer Datuk Seri Idris Jala gave that illustrated the sturdy progress made, but for Digital News Asia (DNA), what stood out become the fact that two era-related tasks loomed big among the few tasks that stalled or did no longer take off in any respect.
The first is of direction the 1Malaysia e-mail or MyEmail project from ultimate year that become taken via then public-listed Tricubes Bhd. It currently lost its listing repute as it was now not able to regularize its financials.
The poor take-off of the 1Malaysia electronic mail undertaking in all likelihood had a large role on this with the agency making an investment RM5 million to get the gadget in area. But the returns were paltry with just 22,000 Malaysians registering for it.
Idris pointed to this low take-up as evidence that the Government did no longer force people to adopt the 1Malaysia electronic mail carrier. “Not a unmarried sen of presidency cash went into the undertaking, and while critics said we have been going to pressure Malaysians to use it, we never did say that,” he stated.
Instead, tax cash become spent to counter the allegations that have been unfold about it. “If humans did no longer bluff, we would no longer have had to spend tax cash on this [in the form of media advertorials],” he claimed.
At the equal time, Idris said that Pemandu believes that the concept of automating e mail on authorities-related topics to Malaysians is a good concept and welcomes everyone who can give you a way of doing this.
The other era-associated undertaking turned into inside the semiconductor space and concerned a small German fabrication enterprise referred to as L Foundry which also has foundries in France and Russia.
The organization desired to close down its operations in France and relocate operations to Kulim Hi-Tech Park in which it sooner or later planned to installation 5 foundries with a combined ability of 78,000 wafers a month.
But its German facility filed for insolvency and that scuppered any plans for its Malaysia relocation. Interestingly but, Idris said that the centered output of 78,000 wafers a month remains as Pemandu feels the more potential is critical and is looking present semiconductor vegetation in Malaysia to take in the slack. It is operating with the newly fashioned Semiconductor Fabrication Association of Malaysia.
However, absolutely everyone who understands the workings of the semiconductor area, especially foundries, will recognize that no foundry will make a unmarried wafer until there is a confirmed customer for the chips that come out from that wafer.
So, this foisting of a not small amount of seventy eight,000 wafers just because there is a target by means of Pemandu that desires to be met appeared strange and against enterprise logic.
During the Q&A session, DNA asked Idris to clarify his comments. “We will now not ask humans to increase manufacturing willy-nilly, with out taking commercial and market conditions into the equation,” he said. “Can they expand capacity? Is it possible? Will it sacrifice their profitability?”
He said that it is Pemandu’s judgement name that the Malaysian-based semiconductor foundries can select up this slack but at the identical time, “we are able to not make humans do it if it does no longer make business feel. In this example we can reduce the target.”
Disclosure: Karamjit Singh is editorial marketing consultant to http://www.businesscircle.com.my/, a enterprise blog that Pemandu runs.
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1Malaysia e mail to head on, says Pemandu, Tricubes