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There is currently a shortage of cooking oil in this country.reason, producers are forced to sell below world market price for cooking oil and traders will smuggle all available stock they have to neighboring countries where it is sold at slightly less than market price.
Soon, there will be similar shortages in diesel as well.
The govenrment is not subsidising the poor, but is giving money to smugglers billions of ringgit each year.
one of the chief beneficiaries of this system is the fisherman's union (NEKMAT), which are given diesel at 50 sen a litre.
The best solution is to close down the ministry of consumer affairs, and let the market takes its course.

Use sugar cane (Ethanol fuel).

I was in brazil before. Their sugar cane (Ethanol fuel) powered cars run as fast as others.

For more on (Ethanol fuel), please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil.

I found 2 interesting things in the article.

1.
Brazil: With the 1973 oil crisis, the Brazilian government, then run by the general Ernesto Geisel, initiated in 1975 the Pró-Álcool program. (to replace oil)

Malaysia: Malaysia will become a net oil importer in 2011. Najib said, "we will become an importer of oil". period.

2. Brazil:
The Brazilian government provided three important initial drivers for the ethanol industry: guaranteed purchases by the state-owned oil company Petrobras, low-interest loans for agro-industrial ethanol firms, and fixed gasoline and ethanol prices where hydrous ethanol sold for 59% of the government-set gasoline price at the pump.
Malaysia: The company must be owned sustantially by bumiputera. (yes, we are still at this level of playing)

Well Done, Malaysia!!! Keep doing it and lets fail together... Let's us make it in the world history, "Malaysia ways didn't work".

can someone ask that hariless and brainless dude now that he has acknowledged Msia will be an oil importer in 2011, what is the govt gonna do abt it?

COntinue with its way of plundering and let the future generation suffer?

Talk is cheap Najib, what are you gonna do abt it while u guys are in power?

Most of us are trained in Keynesian economics, and acknowledged the forces of invicible hands [allocation of resources by market forces], most of our politicans have to struggle between Marxist economics [subsidies for the poor].

Mahathireconomics preaches that we allow subsidies for infant economies - some with success (re: cooking fuel subsidies), much others with failures (re:Proton/APs).

Its a delicate balancing acts for politicans, but I believe, we must quicken our pace to embrace globalisation, otherwise, in the long run, we will not have the capacity to compete as all resources are put in the wrong sectors.

Lets hope our Politicans have the courage to embrace globalisation and free market! Also must have best practices in managing corruption - re: Singapore.

Well, are willing to raise interest rates, send back the 4 million immigrants, learn to iron our own clothes and wash our own cars, remove the petrol subsidy, and generally learn how to live frugally and efficiently? Are our young willing to work in oil palm plantations, to support an biofuel industry, are we willing to plant our own rice, forget about building luxurious bungalows on forest reserves and valuable arable land, this is just a few of the things we have to think about.... Just a few out a a few thousand.

The ppl in power is spending all our childrens resources on the wrong projects that don't generate the returns for future consumption and well being of this country. Unless they (and we) do something about it now, its gonna be a rough ride 20 years down the road. The Government will be forced to increased personal tax to accomodate for the revenue shortfall to unsustainable level in which more citizens are forced to leave this god forsaken place. Manufacturers will leave for Vietnam et al. All the trees in Malaysia would have been chopped and sold to Japan for $$. We won't be able to compete in service sectors because all our competent people would have left for Spore, HK, EU, Aust, UAE etc, So all we are left with is palm oil and rubber trees. All I can say is, good luck to our future generations.

sydput, there is many factor for the artificial "shortage of cooking oil".
Do you know that lots of Malaysia manufacturing food product depends on palm oil? Actually business indirectly benefit from the subsidiaries to reduce the cost to stay competitive.

And the petroleum subsidiaries share the same fate.

How are we going to stay competitive without subsidiaries? Well, news at 11. ;)

I think 100 dollar a barrel is nothing more than a bubble that is about to burst. Too high.

btw, has malaysian oil production been tapering down as anticipated for a dry up in 2 years time?

I would think that oil rigs would start closing down soon if not already.

if that's not happening, then I am skeptical about the forecast that oil will dry up soon.

Please share news please on closing down of oil rigs if anyone has any information.

The high of $100 a barrel was artificial http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7169543.stm

An idiot bought 1000 barrels (the minimal quantity) and immediately sells it at a loss just to create legacy.

Subsidising fuel is a no-hope approach that is guaranteed to fail in the long run. The subsidy is overwhelmingly to the benefit of the rich, who continue to be less and less responsible with their use of precious oil. It is the choice of a government too weak to stand up to special interests and too short-sighted to understand the consequences of its actions.

If the government really cared about making sure the poor could get around, it would gradually withdraw the fuel subsidy and use all the reclaimed funds for providing effective public transport, preferably sensible rail that does not contribute to congestion.

Not only will this allow the money to help the people it is claimed to be intended for, but it will allow everyone to get where they are going faster than our heavily-clogged roads currently permit.

In 10 years, when there are so many cars on the road that everyone is spending 4 hours a day in the jam, it won't matter how generous the subsidy is because nobody will be able to get anywhere. All that money that was poured into fuel subsidies will be gone, and there will be no infrastructure to show for it - just a lot of poisonous air and asthmatic children.

I thought high oil prices is good for oil producing country like Malaysia, no?

Jan 5, 2008
Maverick trader pushed oil to US$100 level

LONDON - IT WAS a small deal, but with it, a maverick trader pushed oil to US$100 (S$143) a barrel for the first time - and also secured a place for himself in history.

According to the Financial Times, insiders have named the trader who sought the proverbial 15 minutes of fame as Richard Arens, who runs a brokerage called ABS.

The cost to Mr Arens for bragging rights - or, as one oil market newsletter editor put it: 'To tell his grandchildren that he was the first in the world to buy US$100 oil' - was US$600.

He bought 1,000 barrels, the smallest amount permitted, for US$100 on Wednesday, at a time when the prevailing price was $99.53. He sold it immediately for $99.40 at a $600 loss.

Market watchers believe Mr Arens was motivated simply by being the first person to buy at US$100.

His actions have attracted criticism from experts, who say that it risked artificially triggering automatic 'stop orders' placed by others in the event that the price hit US$100, reported Britain's Guardian newspaper.

Mr Arens, who placed the deal on the floor of the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex), was not available for comment.

Analysts say he may have been testing the ceiling of the crude price, but the premium he paid surprised the market.

Nymex said that US crude oil futures traded just once in triple figures on Wednesday.

Mr Stephen Schork, the oil market newsletter editor, told BBC Radio Four's Today programme: 'This could have triggered a massive artificial rally. It creates a doubt that these kind of shenanigans could be commonplace - you begin to question the validity of prices and to ask 'are these markets really working?''

Meanwhile, the transaction was not shown at first on the electronic Globex system, which carries the bulk of crude oil trading, leaving the market unsure about the price level. But Nymex told the Financial Times that 'it is considered a valid trade'.

Yesterday, New York's main contract, light sweet crude oil for delivery in February, was 11 cents higher, at $99.29 a barrel.

Mahathirnomics, a.k.a. noddynomics goes one notch better. He wanted zero inflation, and at the same time 8%-9% GDP growth per year for more than 20 years in arriving at Vision 2020.

aviva1957 remark concerning sugar cane, to replace petrol requirement will not solve anything. In brazil, jungles are wasted to plant commodity crops such as sugar cane/corn and soya. and because these crops, togehter with palm oil are substitution for crude petroleumm products, its price will rise and fall in tandem with crude oil prices.

Only solution is to ban usage of vehicles that consumes too much, like cars with big capacity engines.or force everyone to commute using motorcycles.

tata and renault are working on a car powered by high pressure compressed air,capable of moving @ 100km/hr for up to 100km/ per compression. this should be ideal vehicle for commuters. Air can be compessed during the night, when power usage are at its lowest and used during the day with no additional carbon added to the atmosphere.

Oh, GREAT....

Now everyone can walk to work, and eat roti canai everyday...

Oh wait, if oil price goes up, roti canai price also go up...

Can't wait for the next election....

scamboy
Telco Talk Malaysia
http://malaysianwireless.com/

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/1/7/nation/19934635&sec=nation

so this is how the government is going to fight people in poverty?I mean...fight poverty?