THE figures are mindboggling. The demand endless. One of the pressing challenges facing humanity is infrastructure — the basic physical and organisational structures and facilities (e.g. buildings, roads, power supplies) needed for the operation of a society or enterprise. The correlation of poor or non-existent infrastructure to poverty, disease, joblessness, environmental issues, such as air and water quality, social ills, such as crime, mental illness, corruption, alienation and radicalisation, is proven.

KUCHING: Works Minister Datuk Seri Fadillah Yusof brushed aside suggestions that the delay in paying contractors of the Pan Borneo Highway project is because the government does not have enough funds for the project.

KUCHING: The government will look at its internal procedures so that contractors doing the Pan Borneo Highway project can have their payment claims settled within two or three months at the most.

The Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) launched its latest Islamic capital market (ICM) initiative with the unveiling of a five-year Islamic Fund and Wealth Management Blueprint, which vision is for Malaysia to be a leading international centre for Islamic fund and wealth management (IFWM) and to drive further development and growth of the ICM.

DEALS in the issuance of debt and new shares dipped in Malaysia this year from 2015 due to a softer market. Debt capital market issuances amounted to US$10.12bil from US$12.5bil last year and equity capital market deals fell to US$2.23bil from US$3.83bil in 2015.

DECEMBER 22 ― Congratulations to MRT Corp on achieving on-time completion for Phase 1 of Line 1 (Sungai Buloh-Kajang ― SBK Line). However, the concern is how much does it cost and also the estimated costs for the other two lines.