20 January 2021, Gelang Patah –– Port of Tanjung Pelepas (PTP), a joint venture between Malaysian based MMC Group and Netherlands based APM Terminals registered a strong terminal growth after accomplishing record-breaking 9.8 million TEUS (Twenty Equivalent Units) total throughput in 2020 despite global economic uncertainties and health pandemic.

The record represents an increase of more than 8% growth at the back of 9.1 million TEUS recorded in 2019.

Dato’ Sri Che Khalib Mohamad Noh, PTP Chairman remarks that in spite of global health crisis and economic uncertainties, PTP continues to further strengthen its position as one of the main transhipment hubs in the region and deliver the best value and services to its customers and all stakeholders.

“Last year, PTP invested more than RM700 million in an effort to improve its container handling capacity, capability and reliability by procuring additional 8 Super Post Panamax Quay Cranes, 10 Electrified Rubber Tyred Gantries (ERTG) and the dredging of our navigation channel to ensure new generation of Ultra Large Container Vessels (ULCV) ships can safely navigate to our port.

By investing in our assets, we are further establishing our terminal as one of the best equipped and most technologically advanced terminals in the region and will ensure that PTP can keep up with the rapid changes in the port and shipping industry and subsequently meet the growing demand of our customers” he added.

Marco Neelsen, Chief Executive Officer explains that the trajectory growth derives at the back of the surge in extra transhipment calls volume receives by the port due to the increase demand in Asia and Europe as well as requests from customers to increase their throughput in PTP.

“Despite some challenges during Q2 of FY2020, the 2^nd Half of the year went very positive for PTP with an upsurge of volume due to the opening of countries’ borders and the reviving of the global trade economy for China, Transpacific and Europe regions.”

“PTP’s readiness and proactive drive to handle these demands have definitely cushioned the downside scenario and impact of sluggish global trade saw earlier as a result of COVID-19 outbreak and the measures taken by countries to halt the pandemic” he said.

PTP recorded a string of record-breaking terminal performance throughout 2020 including accomplishing the latest all – time highest record for TEUS handling in a month with 967,783 TEUS as well as the highest moves in a single shift with a total of 12,411 moves (19,984 TEUS) last December.

(Article by UNGC)

More than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas, and the number is assumed to increase to two thirds by 2050. Cities are centers of commerce, generating more than 80 percent of global GDP, and play an essential role in advancing productivity needed for economic development. Urbanization can make it easier to place the required infrastructure for essential services such as grid-connected energy, water and sanitation. However, urbanization also causes vast challenges. All over the world, cities are confronting critical levels of air pollution. Many cities in developing countries face rapidly growing numbers leading to slum dwellers and unplanned urban sprawl as infrastructure provision has not kept pace with population growth. Much of this urban sprawl is in geographies vulnerable to disasters, risks magnified by climate change. These challenges call for better urban planning and management to make the world’s urban spaces more inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.

Businesses are core to the development of cities, livelihood, and services to urban populations. They are well positioned to deliver on Goal 11’s promise of universal access to quality housing, transport, green and heritage sites, in collaboration with Governments and municipalities

Leading companies can contribute to Goal 11 through research, development, and deployment of products and services that improve access to resilient buildings, transport, green spaces, and utilities including electricity, water, and waste management services. Businesses can also leverage their convening power and expertise to protect and invest in cultural and natural heritage. Further, they can play a central role in supporting access to essential services across the workplace, marketplace and community.

State of Urbanisation and Sustainable-city Development in Malaysia

• The urban population for Malaysia was 77.2% in 2020, as compared to 76.6% in 2019, and this number is growing at an average annual rate of 1.67%.
• Over 90% of national economic activity is conducted in cities.
• In Malaysia, the increase in GHG emissions in cities has been further aggravated by rapid urbanization and industrialization (7% per annum), relatively high carbon intensity dependence on fossil fuels and coal, and poor public transportation system and high demand of mobility caused rapid increase of cars compared to population growth.
• The ASEAN Smart Cities Network (ASCN) was established in 2018 as a collaborative platform to synergise governments and the private sector’s efforts to build smart and resilient cities in the region.

The next section of this article provides a 5-step blueprint for benchmark leadership qualities, as well as a framework for business action which helps corporates advance SDG 11.

Do your actions satisfy leadership qualities?

1. Intentionality

• Is your company committed to supporting the achievement of Goal 11? Have you developed a holistic strategy that reflects this commitment, covering end-to-end operation and the wider community?
• Are you committed to learn from your actions and do you have processes in place to improve them accordingly?
• Is your strategy supported by the highest levels of management, including the Board of Directors?

2. Ambition

• Do your actions achieve long-term outcomes that greatly exceed those resulting from current industry practice?
• Are your actions aligned with what is needed to achieve Goal 11?

3. Consistency

• Is support for Goal 11 embedded across all organizational functions?
• Are staff and board incentives aligned with achieving Goal 11?

4. Collaboration

• Do you proactively look for opportunities to partner with Governments, UN agencies, suppliers, civil society organizations, industry peers and other stakeholders to inform how to advance Goal 11?

4. Accountability

• Do you publicly express your commitment to advance Goal 11?
• Do you identify, monitor, and report on impacts, including potentially adverse impacts?
• Do you mitigate risks associated with your action?
• Do you remediate negative impacts associated with this action?
• Do you engage stakeholders in a meaningful way?

Framework for Business Action

Business Action 1: Research, develop, and deploy products and services that improve access to resilient buildings, transport, green spaces, and utilities

Businesses own property, develop physical assets, and offer services throughout the urban space, positioning them to have a large role in shaping sustainable urban areas and connecting residents to essential services. All businesses are expected to show that urban projects do not negatively impact the environment and social assets. In the construction sector, business leadership can include developing and delivering resilient infrastructure, buildings, and materials that maximize mobility and access to green space while minimizing resource use, pollution, and negative impacts on vulnerable groups in society. This would include reducing the impacts of infrastructure projects’ end-of-life. Given the challenge of sustainable urbanization in developing countries, in particular, leading companies would seek out ways to tailor products and services for use in these areas.

Example Practice

• A financial institution partners with city government to structure and launch a green bond to attract investment for sustainable infrastructure within city region

Business Action 2: Protect and invest in cultural and natural heritage

Cultural and natural heritage sites provide livelihoods for local communities and valuable educational and recreational experiences for visitors. All businesses should, at a minimum, identify the impacts of their operations on cultural and natural heritage assets, including through using environmental impact assessments. Leading businesses leverage their reach, expertise, and resources to connect residents and visitors to heritage assets to ensure their preservation and enhancement. This could include investing in environmental protection, supporting museums, and creating transport infrastructure in communities surrounding own and supply chain operations. They could lead through implementation of policies and practices that factor natural capital and cultural heritage into corporate decision making, including physical design and building the capacity of suppliers to do the same.

Example Practice

• A property developer designs and manages a business park around natural features to preserve natural ecosystems and existing habitats, as well as ancient land structures

Business Action 3: Support access to essential services across the workplace, marketplace, and community

In many communities, essential services such as education, housing, and healthcare may not be available or may not be of sufficient quality. Leading companies can take action to ensure that employees across their operations and the supply chain have access to quality essential services by directly providing those services in places where they are not available. They can also design and market affordable and accessible services that reach beyond their employees to address gaps in service provision in the communities surrounding their operations. Further, they can provide access to green spaces across the workplace, marketplace, and community. In all cases, leading companies take care not to interfere with existing initiatives from Governments and others by consulting all relevant stakeholders to understand where they might complement them.

Example Practice

• An insurance company works on an app that would connect women in danger or in need to the nearest police station, hospitals, banks, law and order institutions, and vocational training institutes. The app aims to empower women and promote gender equality locally.

As the social and environmental impact of rapid urbanisation increases, businesses can benefit from opportunities to develop more connected, resilient and sustainable urban areas. Benefits of more sustainable cities and communities include a healthier, more productive workforce, and improved labour market functioning and market access due to better transport links.

By improving mobility and reducing pollution, developing more sustainable cities will contribute to the SDGs related to health (Goal 3), education (Goal 4), sustainable energy (Goal 7), decent work (Goal 8) and equality (Goals 5 and 10). Life on land (Goal 15) and climate action (Goal 13) can be positively impacted by ensuring that urban areas have a reduced environmental footprint. While investment in sustainable cities will improve their residents’ quality of life, it may also have negative impacts on housing affordability, the tax burden, and accelerated urban migration. This may lead to pressures on employment (Goal 8), food (Goal 11), water (Goal 6) and peace (Goal 16). Leading companies which contribute inclusive, sustainable infrastructure that manages these risks can deliver prosperity and stability for the nation.

The Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) just released a media statement on their approach to handling the COVID-19 pandemic going forward. In this media statement, MITI talks about the impact that the pandemic has brought upon business and the economy as well as what steps are being considered.

Read More

EY has released its latest tax alert issue. This issue covers:

Malaysian developments

• Guidelines on automation capital allowance for the services sector
• Extension of tax incentive for issuance of sukuk under the principles of Wakalah
• Extension of income tax exemption for directors of a Labuan entity

Overseas developments

• Poland introduces new obligation to publish reports on tax strategy
• Spanish Parliament approves final legislation to implement Mandatory Disclosure Rules (MDR)

Read Tax Alert Issue

Kuala Lumpur, 25 January 2021 – Gibraltar BSN Life Berhad (“Gibraltar BSN”) today announced the appointment of Lee Kok Wah as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

Kok Wah was previously the Chief Financial Officer of Gibraltar BSN and succeeds the previous CEO Rangam Bir whose term of tenure ended on 23 January 2021.

A Certified Public Accountant (CPA), Kok Wah has over 38 years of experience in the corporate world, of which 30 years was in the insurance industry. Prior to joining Gibraltar BSN on 15 August 2016, he was the Chief Financial Officer at AXA Affin Life Insurance and has held similar positions at Syarikat Takaful Malaysia, Hong Leong Assurance and Manulife Insurance.

Chairman of Gibraltar BSN, Dato’ Haji Kamil Khalid Ariff said, “Following the three-year enterprise-wide transformation led by Rangam, Gibraltar BSN is now well poised to unlock new opportunities as it embarks on its next phase of growth. With his deep knowledge of the Company and extensive experience of the industry, the Board is confident that Kok Wah’s appointment will ensure continuity of our strategies to become Malaysia’s Community Protection Champion.”

“I would also like to record the Board’s deepest appreciation to Rangam for all his contributions in successfully transforming the Company into the nimble, digital-first life insurer that it is today”, he added.

Kok Wah is currently a Member of the Life Insurance Association of Malaysia’s Technical Sub-Committees on Tax and a Fellow of Life Management Institute (FLMI) from the Life Office Management Association (LOMA), USA.

22 January 2021, Kuala Lumpur – In these difficult times, it is vital that businesses address the issue of mental health head on, developing a sophisticated mental wellness strategy to fulfil duty of care responsibilities and help employees with their mental health resilience. Beyond the obvious positives implementing these strategies would have for employees, businesses have a direct interest in investing in creating a mental wellness program; according to data from International SOS’ recent Risk Outlook 2021, 1 in 3 risk professionals believe that mental health issues will contribute significantly to declining productivity levels this year. A business that supports employees appropriately will therefore likely be in a better, more productive place than one that does not.

David Ng, Managing Director, Malaysia & Myanmar, International SOS, shared, “According to the Malaysian Health Ministry, over 37,000 calls were made as of November 2020 to helplines during the pandemic, with 53.3% of them seeking emotional and psychological support. In the new business environment, the traditional understanding of Duty of Care has changed. It is crucial for Malaysian leaders and employers to recognise the responsibility they have in caring for the mental health of their employees. This includes addressing wider lifestyle issues such as good eating and sleeping habits, alcohol or substance abuse, fitness, exercise and even ergonomics.”

In line with this, International SOS shared some key strategies Malaysian businesses should look to implement to promote resilience, helping their employees deal with any potential mental health issues:

1. Take steps to check in individually with every employee

This may appear an obvious first move to implement regarding maintaining a robust mental wellness strategy, but it is nonetheless an essential one. It is important for businesses to treat every employee as an individual; different people will be responding to the stress brought on by the pandemic in different ways and it will be potentially causing a range of mental health issues for many employees. The first step towards recognising these comes with actively checking in with employees in a one-to-one situation, as this can allow businesses to form a greater understanding of how they’re coping through this particularly difficult period. This can also be done by carrying out Mental Health or Resilience Surveys with tools that have scientifically been validated and can uncover individual pain points.

2. Make sure people have and are aware of secure routes for reporting their mental health issues

Strategies which look to engage with employees and directly ask them about how they’re doing should be accompanied by more subtle routes for people to gain help. Often people may feel intimidated to discuss their mental health with the colleagues and manager they work with on a day-to-day basis, as they may have anxiety about the way they’re perceived. To counter this issue, it is important that employees are able to discuss their mental health issues with people within a business away from their direct teams, preferably a HR manager or someone with mental wellness training. Removing the stigma to discussing mental health issues is an important part of creating a culture of health within an organisation. Getting leaders to walk the talk is key.

3. Allow and encourage employees to take breaks

To be at our most productive, it is important to take regular breaks within the workday. One useful, and easy to implement, technique is the Pomodoro Technique. This involves using a timer (the ‘Pomodoro’ original or other timer), to break down work into intervals, separated by short breaks. The steps of the technique are:  Decide on the task to be done and set a timer, usually to 25 minutes, and work on the task. When the timer rings, put a checkmark on a piece of paper and take a break. If you have fewer than four checkmarks, take a short break of three to five minutes and then reset the timer.  After four checkmarks, take a longer break of 15–30 minutes. Then start the technique again, resetting your checkmark count to zero. This has been proven to help improve concentration and avoid procrastination, as well as providing a sense of achievement as tasks are completed.

4. Consider the information employees are receiving  

People are bombarded in their daily, technology-filled, lives with more and more information and it is hard to get away from it. Some of the information around the Coronavirus is poor quality and factually inaccurate – feeding feelings of mass hysteria and paranoia. Both a lack of information and poor-quality information has been shown to increase irrational thinking. Checking in with employees on a personal level to make sure they are receiving information from legitimate sources is an important task for employers. It can help employees form an understanding of the situation in the world which counters many of the negative conspiratorial narratives we’ve seen come about as a result of the pandemic.

5. Provide employees with the tools to help them, understanding the level of personal responsibility which must be encouraged

Ultimately businesses need to be focused on creating the conditions in which an individual employee is able to take responsibility for their mental wellbeing, finding the particular strategies which work for them. This links fundamentally to the workplace culture businesses cultivate; a culture which promotes self-care and provides the tools for this can be invaluable for employees. If people feel like they have the option of going for a lunchtime walk to a local park, getting some much-needed fresh air and exercise, then they are far more likely to so but the decision to go ahead with this still rests with them. With many employees working from home encouraging personal responsibility regarding mental wellness becomes an even more important task, as organisations in the current set up simply have a lot less direct oversight on employees.

For further information on how International SOS supports organisations and their people around the world, go to www.internationalsos.com.