Prioritize On Local Business Please

Somehow after all that posting on HYS on brudirect.com, I'm beginning to get some popularity. It's nice to get some appreciation for my contribution to the Brunei public. This was intentionally a comment on one of my article posted there but the editor found it too long and maybe, he thought it would be great if it were to be another post. Well it is a very long essayed comment. I suppose no harm done if it were posted as an article.

This post is directed to writer - Bdollar.

BDollar, I understand your post about projects helping to boost private sector. However, we know the government usually outsource to foreign companies, so often that we aren't sure if there's any 'secret dealings' under table. I mean, the PMB port project costs US$1.5 billion! 10% of Brunei nominal GDP! Outsourced to a Filipino company. Even 1% commission of the project worth $15 millions... if you know what I mean.

The Halal pharmaceuticals is to be handled by a Canadian company. The plan to develop an IT Center, well the iCenter is managed by a Singaporean consulting firm. Brunei Halal Brand, seriously till now I don't see any and don't know what it is, but I know Malaysia Halal brand is widely-known. The aluminum smeltering plant is maintained by Alcoa, a US company. The hybrid rice project is to be done by a Singaporean company.

SPARK is between PetroBrunei, Mitsubishi & Itochu, but I wonder how much role PetroBrunei actually played in it. I'm not against foreign participation, but are they over-awarding projects to foreigners?

Foreign firms do not understand Brunei business landscape, hence they are more likely to bring in or sub-contract to firms in their own country which they have existing relationship with. Supposedly like you said, private sector can benefit from each mega project government launched, but here we are seeing local private sectors have nothing much to gain. Money keeps flowing to foreign firms and local private sector is getting weaker and weaker by year. Elsewhere you see, nations are very protective of their local businesses, they help them abroad and some even use diplomatic pressure or currency manipulation to help their business sector. But Brunei, red tape is everywhere to help business owners hang themselves. Maybe I should register a company somewhere in Southeast Asia then try to bid for Brunei government projects?

And of course I wouldn't be polite if I didn't provide a reply now would I? ;) Look forward to it tomorrow as I am busy with other tasks at the moment.



-Let the power of wealth be with you~