crude oil exceed USD70 per barrel

yeah... that is the fact, crude oil exceeded USD70 per barrel on 29th September 2005.

fresh from recent hike in the petrol per litre, malaysian should be starting to worry. However, this is not quite the case for some. I have talked to some people and they don't seems to bother much. To them "life has to go on" but actually some people really are terrified by it, especially those whose income are very dependent on logistic and distribution.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said the government would initiate another task force to deal with such matter, as it cannot cope the surplus demand for the petrol subsidy given to the people. Currently, Malaysian government subsidises a total amount of RM14 Billion to offset the reality-bite of the people facing with petrol expenses.

One thing to note from his recent interview where he adviced Malaysian to prescribe austerity and frugality in term of energy usage. Bingo, this is a heavy message and will accept many layers of the society.

As we all know it, nobody likes to visit petrol station, personally I lothe it. My current vehicle consumption (Proton Iswara 1.3) is already RM60 per full tank. And I spent around RM250 per month on car petroluem. Now that is around 10% of my official income, which is a lot of money.

Tourism Industry Affected
Therefore, petrol is a necessity, compared to others like telecommunications, entertaintment and even food. The Prime Minister message therefore would indirectly create a negative impact on other industries in the country. One thing for sure, travelling is going to decrease which would affect the tourism industry. Along the chain are hotels, restaurants, recreational parks and etc.

Health Status Improve
While common-joe would continue to visit petrol station to fulfill their fundamental needs, some might even considered cutting the budget for food, something which I believed would improve the overall health status of the people. For one reason, eating moderately is better than feasting lavishly.

ICT industry = Good and bad
I actually encourage everyone to cut down Telekom conversation as much as possible. Switch over to VOIP services such as SKYPE, MSN, Yahoo and even Google Talk. Make use of email (you can receive them immediately) instead normal postage and even post laju. For god sake, get a PC and broadband connection. Don't you worry about Telekom's sustainability, they have earned enough to last for few decades. The corporate world should make it mandatory for business card to comply with SKYPE's ID (or even MSN, Google Talk and etc)

While everybody is having this cost-saving mission on their mind, it will be hard for enterprise computing implementation business because even though many companies reckon the need of enterprise solutions, many actually don't have budget for it. It is just too risky to actually make a P.O for a solution costing around RM80k because many small size companies actually survive on a business model of RM2 million revenue per annum. If we take average of RM1 million turnover per year, that is close to 10% of the revenue. Thus, this would actually make a case for software piracy to be on the rise again. For me in the private sector, I find that sometimes many have no choice but to rely on piracy to survive. Unless the government is willing to transfer other budget's area to offset the petrol price hike, survival must be self-defined by our own hand.

9th Malaysian Plan:
We are expected to hear from the government about 9th Malaysian Plan which the 8th plan will hit its due on 2006. Many ICT organizations are dependent directly on such allocations; MIMOS BHD, MDC (Multi-media development super-corridor) and etc. Should market inconsistency continue to persist, the government may decide to lower the budget for ICT sector and this will affect even more companies and even ICT jobs.




Mimos Bhd currently housed 1000 researchers who directly and indirectly contributed to many other activities among the ICT community. MDC on the other hand is responsible to facilitate many events which are offered free to MSC status company. The upcoming event is GITEX at Dubai. I do believed that participants are invited to take part for a fees of subsidised RM10K per company. Imagine all these luxuries being robbed away just because of the petrol prices, we must therefore continue to rely more faiths towards computer automations and Internet usage.