Personal Money is a good local financial magazine under The Edge which always has discussions about the simple investments,the strategy,the concept of saving money etc and so I can keep my track of growing up my family fund by a right way.I believe the difference between a rich man and a poor man is of their thoughts.Thus,learning towards richness is definitely necessary.

I hope my friends could also know it and learn it from Personal Money.It’s monthly published and only RM9.00 if you are in Peninsular Malaysia.

In the brochure,it says I’m eligible to make cash advance within the available credit limit of the credit card with 0% interest.Read until this point,I had already raised up my questions:if 0% of interest,what will the bank earn?So I read carefully word for word and found this note:5% cash advance fee will be charged and the 0% interest rate is just for 6 months.

To some simple calculations,we just transfer 5% cash advance fee into annual interest rate,which will be 10%.Please don’t forget that 0% interest is only valid for the half year and after that period,the normal interest rate for credit balance will be charged.Thus,if people take this advantage to get some money,but unable to pay it up within 6 months,he will be charged more than 10% at the end.In fact,a few personal loan interest rates that banks offering are better than this.

Banks always play such tricks to bluff us,so we have to be smart enough to not let it work.

TO BE A SMART CONSUMER!

Many observers think that Malaysian government will offer the license for banking service to the related parties,however,they want to get more strategic investments and financial supports from China to push the local economical growth from the recent recession.

Simplified it,China has money and is always looking for some opportunities to make investments.On the other hands,Malaysia is lack of money and is always looking for some chance to attract more foreign investments.That’s why they are going to make a deal.I can see that more and more business and cultural activities is going to hold between two countries.But I can’t see that Malaysian government gives any extra benefits to the Chinese.For example,I’m going to have marriage with my fiancée who is Malaysian Chinese and after the marriage,we decide to stay in Malaysia for some years.Thus,we need to buy a property to stay.

According to the law,foreigners are only able to buy a property valued more than RM250,000 in KL and Selangor and there’s no exemption to a foreign spouse of a Malaysian.I understand this clause protects the low-mid income citizens as foreign investors may push up the property prices if no restrictions here.But in my case,the property could be only under my fiancée’s name if the preferable property is under RM250,000 and nothing protects me.

Malaysian government still needs to be a bit smarter to welcome more foreign investments.

Are you willing to get that?Actually it’s quite simple.After several clicks,you can get what you see here.

1.Click ‘Manage Currency’ and it will be switched into the following page.

2.Go to ‘Select new currency’ and tick the one you want to add and press ‘Add Currency’.

3.After that,you can see your newly added currency is in the list.

If you want to withdraw funds to your local bank account,you have to add the bank information in your profile.I don’t teach you here because it should be the basic of PayPal users.The fees for transactions and withdrawals are listed below:

I think the charges are quite fair.I’m thinking this maybe is a signal from Bank Negara(the Central Bank of Malaysia) for slacking some currency policy so as to attract more foreign direct investment.I love the move!

Three strategies:

- driving the country towards a high-income economy,

- ensuring holistic and sustainable development,

- focusing on the well-being of the rakyat.

The rest reported by TheStar are:

(The sentences in bold are which may benefit for low and middle income people,inclusive of students)

* Government to make it easier for skilled/qualified people to get permanent residence status. Visa to be granted for family within 14 days.

* CSR Fund of RM100mil to be set up to carry out social programmes.

* Tax breaks for registration of patents and copyrights.

* Big scale factory outlets to be set up to boost tourism besides having major events like KL Grand Prix Fest, National Water Festival, Malaysia International Golf Exhibition and Rain Forest Eco-Challenges

* Taxpayers will get tax relief on broadband subscription fee of up to RM500 from 2010 to 2012. Civil servants can apply for computer loans up to a maximum of RM5,000 from the govt once in every 5 years.

* RM6bil for agriculture sector for irrigation of paddy fields, fish production, fruit farming, livestock farming infrastructure, training

* RM2bil subsidy for farmers and fishermen including subsidies for fertilisers, incentives for padi yields and allowances for fishermen

* RM9bil to finance infrastructure projects including road and bridges projects and rail, sea ports and airports facilities

* RM1.5bil fund to promote green technology by providing soft loans to companies that supply and use green technology

* RM200mil Creative Industry Fund to finance film, drama, music productions, animation, advertisements through Bank Simpanan Nasional

* RM30bil to be allocated to enhance primary and secondary school education nationwide

* Rewards for students who excel in studies:

- 30 National Scholarships for the creme de la creme of students, stictly based on merit

- Conversion of PTPTN loans to scholarships for students who graduate with 1st class honours degree, beginning from 2010,

- Offer of netbook package, including free broadband service, to university students for RM50 per month for 2 years.

* The Permata programme, which emphasises on early childcare and education, including the gifted child programme, to get RM100mil

* Insurance industry to be improved to meet market demand.

* Govt to clamp down on the abuses committed by Ah Longs by enforcing Anti-Money Laundering and Anti Terrorism Financing Act 2001. Moneylenders Act 1951 to be also reviewed.

* Allow 100% foreign equity participation in corporate finance and financial planning companies compared with the present requirement of at least 30% local shareholding.

* To ensure rapid development of financial services, the existing tax incentives to be extended to 2015.

* Among steps to combat corruption is to set up 14 Special Corruption Sessions Courts and 4 Special Corruption Appeal High Courts.

* Tax of 5% to be imposed on gains from the disposal of real property from Jan 1, 2010. Existing tax exemption will be retained for gifts between parent-child, husband-wife, grandparent-grandchild.

* To promote prudent spending, a service charge of RM50 a year to be imposed on each principal credit card and charge card; and RM25 a year on each supplementary card, effective from Jan 1, 2010.

* To ensure that fuel subsidies only benefit targeted groups, Govt will implement a fuel subsidy management system in early 2010, which will utilise the MyKad.

* All ministries and govt departments are required to provide day care and education centres for children of civil servants.

* The maximum income tax rate for individuals to be reduced to 26% from assessment year 2010. Personal relief increased to RM9,000.

* Police force to get RM1bil to improve its services in govt’s efforts to reduce crime. Major measures include to increase police presence, including mobile police stations in 50 crime hotspots.

* To promote house ownership, Govt will launch a scheme that enables EPF contributors to utilise current and future savings in Account 2.

* Employees’ EPF contribution to be increased to 11% again, on a voluntary basis, effective immediately. However, from Jan 1, 2011 employees’ EPF contribution will revert to 11%.

* Personal relief for EPF and life insurance schemes to be increased to RM7,000.

From my observation,Budget 2010 is a prudent plan which could not boost the economic and could not help for the low and middle income people a lot.However,I can see the emphasis on sustainable development on both financial basis and social basis.That is a good sign to turn the country to a right track if all budgeted matters are properly fulfilled and supervised.I hope it won’t be paying only lip service.

In front of the new budget,Najib must give out the ways for two main points at the same time:

• To keep supporting on business activities and relieving financial pressures of citizens by issuing policies that benefit both companies and consumers
• To cut the deficit into a proper range

I will post the hot points tonight when the budget released to the public.

Some well-known entrepreneur think we are now in the marketing age, meaning that marketing is a key function which dramatically drives a business to a gain or loss. I totally agree it.

For example, you want to sell a kind of bottled fresh milk. How could you get some market initially when there are so many existing players? To put advertisements (newspaper/magazine/Internet etc) indicating the unique advantages of your product, to set a few promotions to let more people know your product and perhaps you can give out free products to potential customers.

Thousands of marketing strategies are out there. You need to take some time to learn some and apply some in your real business. However, you have to remember that every cent you spend on it is definitely at the right place.

4. Human resource

You should hire some staffs who love the job rather than the salary. They surely will pay most of their efforts on their duties and their passion may motivate other people in the company and let all work more efficient than never ever.

If you are doing your business with partnership, only partners working together at the beginning will be a nice method too because it could help you spend less on payroll and know more on the enterprise. If you do need some extra manpower, just hire a proper number of employees. You must be carefully on this because salary is a fixed cost in most organizations. That means the more you hire, the more fixed expenses you hear to pay monthly, and you will feel very hard to cut it down.

Once you completely get those four points above and know how to implement them, I think you could do your real action now-to register a company and a related license/permit.

I’m sorry that I can’t explain too much on this because the rules and regulations are different in most countries. However, I think you could have your detailed information from Internet. Of course, go to have a consultation with chartered accountant or other professionals will be a good idea too.

I’d better to stop my article here since I can do nothing from this point. I wish my contribution could have some value for somebody.

Have a nice day!

1. Demand and Growth

In some term, the demand is the market. If the demand for a product/service is very high, I don’t think the business will go down. However, it always has high competition too and that will definitely rise up a price war. Your profit margin will not be able to follow your target for a long way. Thus, a product/service has a low demand figure currently and a high growth rate is great.

2. Budget

Any business should have a budget, not only for profit, but also for expense. The most limited resource to people who just start to do business is money and unfortunately it is related to everything. So we need to make a budget first and try our best to get enough money into capital in one side, control all expenses in the other side.

To get a budgeted gross profit figure is not a difficult thing because once you correctly know the demand of your product/service and set your profit margin, it almost closes to you.

Well, the budgeted expense is a tough thing. However, you should make sure that the monthly expense is at least less than 1/3 of your initial capital so that you have a 3-month buffer period to promote and sell your product/service without serious financial issues.

Savings is always welcomed. You can order your goods in bulks to have some discounts and lower transport charges; you may only hire several guys, including yourself, to work on the business; you may rent a small unit as your office. To cut the words short, please maximize the value of your money at this particular time.

(To be continued…)

However, things are never going to be so easy. I think to do some planning at the initial stage is necessary. I just roughly list out some essential elements we should take into account. But today I only want to talk about one of these elements is product/service.

To talk about it and to make it work are totally different. To start a business, we have to clearly know which kind of product/service we will carry out. For a business, product/service is the most important thing and of course, it’s tiresome too.

My friends always complain to me that there’s nothing harder than choosing product/service to sell. Well, that’s a big truth. Different sorts of people drive different sorts of demand and the demands push out the products/services. How to choose one product from billions options? You should know your interest and then profit target.

You may be surprised that why I put the interest at the first position. Apparently my reason is simple, just looking back to see why you want to be a boss. If you get great profits from sacrificing your happiness, what you earn is merely some good-looking paper. If you could earn money and have happiness at the same time, you will be the richest man in the world. So now you need to go to find something you’re interested in. Please be noted the ‘something’ doesn’t mean one product/service, it’d better to be a group which allow you to filter out later.

(To be continued…)

The share price is quite fluctuating and currently at RM1.45 per share which is 30% higher than the lowest price in the month.It brings to me 25% earnings on the share value.

However,this good news is just against some other obstacles that I met recently.

I wish I could overcome all soon.

Currently the coverage of the delivery service is only within Central Region and East Malaysia.However,it claimed that the international destinations will be available soon.

It lists the charges for two different accounts:standard account(without pick-up) and preferred account(with pick-up).

I believe this is the way that AirAsia uses its spare(extra) capacity to create more value on its flights.For businessmen,now they have another economical choices to reduce their courier expenses.

Such a great deal!

I heard a lot of people had negative views on the company because both oil price and A(H1N1) are affecting the air industry and no one could stand aside.

However,I have my own opinion on it and just share with you here:

Well,it is not a nice year for the whole aircraft industry.The oil price is fluctuating and A(H1N1) is reversing the tourism and air industry too.However,I believe that would not badly affect AirAsia.Why?

Firstly,AirAsia is buying the oil at a current price(if I recall correctly).It adopts this method from the beginning of the year.I believe the company opted this method because they had foreseen the instability of the oil market within the short-mid term.That also indicates that the company could afford the fluctuation within a proper range as this should be the basic work for an experienced airline.Thus,the risk supposes to be controllable.

Secondly,A(H1N1) is a pandemic disease that no one could forecast it.It causes the recession of both tourism and air industry.The most important reason that AirAsia could win the nice market share is the ability to control the cost.Apparently,it’s also the major weakness of other carriers such as MAS.AirAsia still could expand their lines quickly as they make the business more efficiently.MAS,for example,will have to cut more less-profit lines in order to get a good balance.Thus,in a long run,the company which could get a biggest piece of cake will definitely gain the top position.

So I think if AirAsia is able to maintain the debt in a reasonable margin at this tough time,it will be more bright than now.

Remember,AirAsia is still young and vital!

After I received several enquiries for a VPN service for downloading and streaming,I decided to host another USA VPN service which has enough bandwidth to be used with a reasonable price.Thus,it is good for the people who like downloading and streaming.

I had set up an official website called ValueVPN to sell the services.I hope you guys will continue to support it.Of course,I always welcome your comments and suggestions.

I hope I could provide what you want!

Of course,it’s only a little of luck plus a lot of efforts.Definitely they have some unique observations and strategies to overcome the bad effects of economical downturn.I wish I could learn something from them.

By the way,the richest Chinese in the world is a very old name-Li Ka-shing,who is ranked at 16th.Well,he’s always there!

(Resources refer to Forbes and The Wall Street Journal.)

From the start of its business,AirAsia has its very own creative approaches to lead the growth.And yes,it wins lots of success and thus stands solid among other airlines(international competitors).From the statement,it indicates that though it is a tough period that the company has a tight finance,there are still plenty of opportunities coming on the way,especially the growing numbers of passengers in the past month showing the good fact.

Therefore,AirAsia believes that a new and advanced LCCT(low cost carrier terminal) is necessary to fit the future life of the company as the current LCCT(owned by Malaysia Airport Holdings Bhd) which is close to KLIA(Kuala Lumpur International Airport) can’t provide more parking lots for new aircrafts(2 new aircrafts every month) and afford higher volume of passengers in the foreseen future-estimated to have 60 million in 2013.

AirAsia calls the KLIA-East project as a matter of life-or-death and now it has closely worked with Sime Darby Bhd.Meanwhile,the project has been approved by the government and so it will start construction as soon as the complete plan and design rolling out,as it be scheduling to be in operation in early 2011.

AirAsia also calls the KLIA-East project as a terminal for people so that The Rakyat’s Terminal.The terminal is promised to give its users much more comfortable environment that current one.Some friendly and convenient facilities are under plans too,such as the linkage of KTM,ERL and automatic trains(Aerotrain) in KLIA.Although it will be located in Labu,Negeri Sembilan,in fact it will be 18KM closer to Kuala Lumpur city centre than current LCCT.

Click for a large view

The most important thing is,AirAsia will have its real control on the terminal and so a right to reduce the costs and thus give customers much lower fares.

Now AirAsia has set up a microsite for KLIA-East and welcome all people voice out.For me,I will keep on supporting AirAsia as it’s thinking of people,not only benefits.Of course,I will follow up all the news about this project too.

Just stay tuned!

I may rant out that they moved the earth’s rotation in their own way.All right,I think my visitors surely are interested to know who are these giants.So keep your eyes on the following contents:

1: Barack Obama(President-Elect,US)

2: Hu Jintao(China,President)

3: Nicolas Sarkozy(President,France)

4-5-6: Economic Triumvirate (central banker of US Federal Reserve,Ben Bernanke;CB of European Central Bank,Jean-Claude Trichet;CB of the bank of Japan,Masaaki Shirakawa)

7: Gordon Brown(Prime Minister,United Kingdom)

8: Angela Merkel(Chancellor,Germany)

9: Vladimir Putin(Prime Minister and former President,Russia)

10: Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud(King,Saudi Arabia)

11: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei(spiritual leader and highest authority,Iran)

12: Kim Jong Il(Chairman of the National Defence Commission,North Korea)

13-14: The Clintons (former President Bill Clinton and his wife,US)

15: Timothy Geithner(Obama’s Treasury Secretary,US)

16: Gen. David Petraeus(Head of Central Command,US)

17: Sonia Gandhi(President of Congress Party,India)

18: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva(President,Brazil)

19: Warren Buffett(one of the richest people in the world,investor,US)

20: Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani(Chief of Army Staff,Pakistan)

21: Nuri al-Maliki(Prime Minister,Iraq)

22-23: The Philanthropists (Bill Gates,the co-founder of Microsoft and his wife Melinda Gates,US)

24: Nancy Pelosi(The Democratic leader,US)

25: Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan(President,the United Arab Emirates)

26: Mike Duke(CEO-Designate,Wal-Mart Stores,US)

27: Rahm Emanuel(Chief of staff of President-Elect Obama,US)

28: Eric Schmidt(co-founder of Google,the advisor of President-Elect Obama,US)

29: Jamie Dimon(CEO of JP Morgan Chase,US)

30-31: Friends of Barack (David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett,true friends and senior advisors of President-Elect Obama,US)

32: Dominique Strauss-Kahn(Managing Director, International Monetary Fund)

33: Rex Tillerson(CEO, ExxonMobil,US)

34: Steve Jobs(founder and CEO of Apple Inc.,US)

35: John Lasseter(chief creative officer,Pixar Studios,US)

36: Michael Bloomberg(Mayor of New York City,US)

37: Pope Benedict XVI(Head of the Roman Catholic Church)

38: Katsuaki Watanabe(CEO of Toyota,Japan)

39: Rupert Murdoch(Chairman and CEO of News Corp.)

40: Jeff Bezos(CEO of Amazon.com,US)

41: Shahrukh Khan(The King of Bollywood,India)

42: Osama bin Laden(Global Terrorist)

43: Hassan Nasrallah(the most influential radical Shiite leader,Arab world)

44: Dr. Margaret Chan(Director-General, World Health Organization)

45: Carlos Slim Helú(Tycoon,Mexico)

46: The Dalai Lama(Tibetan spiritual leader)

47: Oprah Winfrey(a famous talk-show anchor,US)

48: Amr Khaled(Televangelist,Egypt)

49: E. A. Adeboye (the pastor of The Redeemed Christian Church of God,Nigeria)

50: Jim Rogers (CEO of Duke Energy,US)

From the list,the biography of each person is not the only thing.In the meantime,we could know what the matters we need to be concerned;what the revolutions we need to make and what the intimidation we need to face.Finally,it’s all about life.

Therefore to have market research is very important nowadays.the result of the research helps manufacturing company identify the essential elements that the final product should have.And at same time to make some proper preparation in order to beat other competitors of  the market and secure the market share.

The Lead Dogs is a company specialized on getting you the high-quality B2B(business to business) sales leads that turn into sales.. They have got a lot of outsourcing works from some big companies like Microsoft.They do all functions as below:

• Qualify responders to marketing campaigns to identify those that are sales-ready.
• Leverage the investment in marketing responses by nurturing inquiries that represent future opportunity, but aren’t sales-ready today.
• Fill the sales pipeline with qualified opportunities to drive consistent revenue.
• Penetrate accounts to uncover qualified opportunity areas in key market segments.

Do you feel doubtful on these professional contents?You can have a look on some marketing related books and I’m sure that you’ll feel comfortable then.

The thing you need to remember is:In 21st century,it’s never about products.It’s a marketing war.To do a business,you have to know your market first.Good luck.