Tambahan bonus setengah bulan gaji untuk penjawat awam

Source: http://www.bharian.com.my/bharian/articles/Tambahanbonussetengahbulangajiuntukpenjawatawam/Article

2011/10/07

KUALA LUMPUR: Kakitangan kerajaan akan mendapat tambahan bonus setengah bulan gaji manakala pesara kerajaan akan menerima bayaran bantuan RM500.

Perkara ini diumumkan Perdana Menteri, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, dalam pembentangan Belanjawan 2012 di Dewan Rakyat sebentar tadi.

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Kadar pembiayaan rumah kekal 90%

Source:utusan online
KUALA LUMPUR 21 Sept. - Bagi memastikan golongan muda dan berpendapatan rendah mampu memiliki rumah sendiri, kerajaan membuat keputusan untuk mengekalkan pembiayaan rumah kepada 90 peratus.

Perdana Menteri, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak berkata, kadar pembiayaan rumah itu kekal untuk pembelian bagi rumah pertama dan kedua sahaja.

Beliau berkata, kerajaan juga tidak berhasrat mengurangkan kadar pinjaman perumahan daripada 90 peratus kepada 80 peratus pada masa ini.

"Bagi pembeli yang sudah memiliki beberapa buah rumah dan berhasrat untuk membeli rumah lagi, kemungkinan jumlah pinjaman akan dikurangkan kepada 80 peratus sebagaimana dicadangkan," katanya kepada pemberita selepas mendengar taklimat Lembaga Pengarah Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) di sini, hari ini.

Beliau berkata demikian bagi mengulas cadangan BNM yang mahu mengkaji semula cadangan supaya bank-bank tempatan mengurangkan pinjaman perumahan daripada 90 peratus kepada 80 peratus.

Namun, cadangan itu mendapat bantahan daripada beberapa pertubuhan bukan kerajaan (NGO) yang melihat ia akan menjejaskan peluang golongan muda untuk memiliki rumah.

Malah, ada gesaan supaya BNM menangguhkan cadangan menurunkan nisbah pinjaman berbanding nilai (LVR) pajakan sesuatu hartanah kepada 80 peratus.

Dalam pada itu, Perdana Menteri berkata, kerajaan mengambil sikap terbuka berkenaan cadangan untuk membenarkan ringgit diniagakan di luar pesisir, 12 tahun selepas ia dihentikan.

Ringgit kini diniagakan pada paras tinggi dalam tempoh 13 tahun pada RM3.10 berbanding dolar Amerika Syarikat.

"Ringgit kita mengukuh seiring dengan asas-asas ekonomi yang menggalakkan dan ini tidak menyebabkan sebarang kesan teruk pada perdagangan dan pelaburan ke Malaysia," kata Najib.

Beliau berkata, kerajaan akan mengambil beberapa langkah serta mengkaji secara mendalam sebelum rancangan ringgit diniagakan.

Katanya, kerajaan sentiasa berhati-hati dengan langkah tersebut agar kesan krisis kewangan 1997 tidak berulang di samping menjejaskan nilai ringgit yang dilihat begitu kukuh ketika ini.

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China Passes Japan as Second-Largest Economy

Source:http://finance.yahoo.com/news/China-Passes-Japan-as-nytimes-2766831302.html?x=0&.v=1
On Monday August 16, 2010, 12:20 am EDT

SHANGHAI — After three decades of spectacular growth, China passed Japan in the second quarter to become the world’s second-largest economy behind the United States, according to government figures released early Monday.

The milestone, though anticipated for some time, is the most striking evidence yet that China’s ascendance is for real and that the rest of the world will have to reckon with a new economic superpower.

The recognition came early Monday, when Tokyo said that Japan’s economy was valued at about $1.28 trillion in the second quarter, slightly below China’s $1.33 trillion. Japan’s economy grew 0.4 percent in the quarter, Tokyo said, substantially less than forecast. That weakness suggests that China’s economy will race past Japan’s for the full year.

Experts say unseating Japan — and in recent years passing Germany, France and Great Britain — underscores China’s growing clout and bolsters forecasts that China will pass the United States as the world’s biggest economy as early as 2030. America’s gross domestic product was about $14 trillion in 2009.

“This has enormous significance,” said Nicholas R. Lardy, an economist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “It reconfirms what’s been happening for the better part of a decade: China has been eclipsing Japan economically. For everyone in China’s region, they’re now the biggest trading partner rather than the U.S. or Japan.”

For Japan, whose economy has been stagnating for more than a decade, the figures reflect a decline in economic and political power. Japan has had the world’s second-largest economy for much of the last four decades, according to the World Bank. And during the 1980s, there was even talk about Japan’s economy some day overtaking that of the United States.

But while Japan’s economy is mature and its population quickly aging, China is in the throes of urbanization and is far from developed, analysts say, meaning it has a much lower standard of living, as well as a lot more room to grow. Just five years ago, China’s gross domestic product was about $2.3 trillion, about half of Japan’s.

This country has roughly the same land mass as the United States, but it is burdened with a fifth of the world’s population and insufficient resources.

Its per capita income is more on a par with those of impoverished nations like Algeria, El Salvador and Albania — which, along with China, are close to $3,600 — than that of the United States, where it is about $46,000.

Yet there is little disputing that under the direction of the Communist Party, China has begun to reshape the way the global economy functions by virtue of its growing dominance of trade, its huge hoard of foreign exchange reserves and United States government debt and its voracious appetite for oil, coal, iron ore and other natural resources.

China is already a major driver of global growth. The country’s leaders have grown more confident on the international stage and have begun to assert greater influence in Asia, Africa and Latin America, with things like special trade agreements and multibillion dollar resource deals.

“They’re exerting a lot of influence on the global economy and becoming dominant in Asia,” said Eswar S. Prasad, a professor of trade policy at Cornell and former head of the International Monetary Fund’s China division. “A lot of other economies in the region are essentially riding on China’s coat tails, and this is remarkable for an economy with a low per capita income.”

In Japan, the mood was one of resignation. Though increasingly eclipsed by Beijing on the world stage, Japan has benefited from a booming China, initially by businesses moving production there to take advantage of lower wages and, as local incomes have risen, by tapping a large and increasingly lucrative market for Japanese goods.

Beijing is also beginning to shape global dialogues on a range of issues, analysts said; for instance, last year it asserted that the dollar must be phased out as the world’s primary reserve currency.

And while the United States and the European Union are struggling to grow in the wake of the worst economic crisis in decades, China has continued to climb up the economic league tables by investing heavily in infrastructure and backing a $586 billion stimulus plan.

This year, although growth has begun to moderate a bit, China’s economy is forecast to expand about 10 percent — continuing a remarkable three-decade streak of double-digit growth.

“This is just the beginning,” said Wang Tao, an economist at UBS in Beijing. “China is still a developing country. So it has a lot of room to grow. And China has the biggest impact on commodity prices — in Russia, India, Australia and Latin America.”

There are huge challenges ahead, though. Economists say that China’s economy is too heavily dependent on exports and investment and that it needs to encourage greater domestic consumption — something China has struggled to do.

The country’s largely state-run banks have recently been criticized for lending far too aggressively in the last year while shifting some loans off their balance sheet to disguise lending and evade rules meant to curtail lending growth.

China is also locked in a fierce debate over its currency policy, with the United States, European Union and others accusing Beijing of keeping the Chinese currency, the renminbi, artificially low to bolster exports — leading to huge trade surpluses for China but major bilateral trade deficits for the United States and the European Union. China says that its currency is not substantially undervalued and that it is moving ahead with currency reform.

Regardless, China’s rapid growth suggests that it will continue to compete fiercely with the United States and Europe for natural resources but also offer big opportunities for companies eager to tap its market.

Although its economy is still only one-third the size of the American economy, China passed the United States last year to become the world’s largest market for passenger vehicles. China also passed Germany last year to become the world’s biggest exporter.

Global companies like Caterpillar, General Electric, General Motors and Siemens — as well as scores of others — are making a more aggressive push into China, in some cases moving research and development centers here.

Some analysts, though, say that while China is eager to assert itself as a financial and economic power — and to push its state companies to “go global” — it is reluctant to play a greater role in the debate over climate change or how to slow the growth of greenhouse gases.

China passed the United States in 2006 to become the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, which scientists link to global warming. But China also has an ambitious program to cut the energy it uses for each unit of economic output by 20 percent by the end of 2010, compared to 2006.

Assessing what China’s newfound clout means, though, is complicated. While the country is still relatively poor per capita, it has an authoritarian government that is capable of taking decisive action — to stimulate the economy, build new projects and invest in specific industries.

That, Mr. Lardy at the Peterson Institute said, gives the country unusual power. “China is already the primary determiner of the price of virtually every major commodity,” he said. “And the Chinese government can be much more decisive in allocating resources in a way that other governments of this level of per capita income cannot.”

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Koperasi Tentera bayar dividen 13 peratus

Sumber:Utusan Online
SUNGAI BULOH 28 Jun - Koperasi Angkatan Tentera Malaysia Berhad (Koperasi Tentera) akan membayar dividen sebanyak 13 peratus kepada lebih 140,000 ahlinya bagi tahun ini.

Dividen bagi tahun lepas berjumlah RM70 juta itu adalah sama seperti yang dikeluarkan pada tahun 2007.


Panglima Angkatan Tentera Malaysia, Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Zainal merakamkan penghargaan kepada ahli dan pengurusan koperasi yang berjaya mengekalkan kedudukannya sebagai salah satu koperasi cemerlang di negara ini.

Beliau yang juga Yang Dipertua koperasi itu berkata, selain memiliki jumlah anggota yang ramai dan jumlah yuran serta syer hampir RM600 juta, koperasi juga telah berjaya menghasilkan prestasi kewangan yang sangat baik dan konsisten sehingga mampu memberikan pulangan dividen berterusan sebanyak 12 peratus setahun sejak 1996.

"Pencapaian itu amat membanggakan walaupun dalam keadaan ekonomi negara dan dunia kurang stabil. Saya percaya pencapaian ini adalah hasil sokongan padu seluruh anggota kepada koperasi terutama dalam melanggan produk-produk yang disediakan.

"Adalah menjadi harapan saya agar sokongan ini dapat dikekalkan demi menjamin kejayaan dan keunggulan Koperasi Tentera pada masa akan datang," katanya.

Beliau berkata demikian ketika berucap merasmikan Mesyuarat Agung Koperasi Tentera ke-44 di Dewan Besar Perbadanan Hal Ehwal Bekas Angkatan Tentera (Perhebat) di Kem Sungai Buloh di sini hari ini.

Hadir sama ialah Naib Yang Dipertua Koperasi Tentera iaitu Panglima Tentera Udara, Jeneral Tan Sri Azizan Arifin dan Panglima Tentera Laut, Laksamana Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Jaafar.

Sementara itu, Aziz juga mengingatkan anggota koperasi supaya sentiasa menjaga kepentingan organisasi tersebut yang sebenarnya ditubuhkan semata-mata bagi memenuhi keperluan mereka dan bukannya pihak lain di luar.

Katanya, Koperasi Tentera dimiliki dan dikawal secara demokrasi serta aktivitinya dilanggan oleh anggotanya, justeru, maju mundur bergantung sepenuhnya pada komitmen jitu ahlinya.

"Saya ingin menegaskan bahawa anda semua sebagai anggota Koperasi Tentera mempunyai tanggungjawab berat yang perlu dilaksanakan secara lebih berkesan.

"Koperasi ini adalah milik anda, sikap tolong-menolong, bekerjasama, semangat kekitaan dan sayangkan koperasi perlu ada dalam diri setiap anggota. Penyertaan anggota perlu diiringi dengan sikap penuh komitmen dan dedikasi yang mampu menghindarkan sebarang gejala buruk," katanya.

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