Blog = Web Log

For those who are new to blogs, getting to read this is not too late! Coz now I have a brief "bombing" kick start for you. What is a blog? It actually stands for "web log", in short. It is the quickest and easist way to post articles, journals, announcements, or even create a website from scratch and and keeps it updated. Unlike any conventional e-mails and websites, blogs can be updated at anywhere, at anytime. As long as it is plugged in to the Internet, you are ready to edit, access, view or log into the web log. A simple and plain web log would consist of only words of articles (a.k.a posts) for users to read. However, additional features can be added in order to serve better for its purpose. As an example, this blog is added a tagboard, where short messages or announcements can be posted by users at anywhere, anytime. There is also a "comment" feature right below of each post, where comments for a particular post can be made and your comments can be replied by anybody, at anywhere, anytime too.

2005 Budget Seminar @ Nikko Hotel 15 Sept 2004

On the 15th September 2004 marked a day of remembrance for our annual budget and tax planning seminar. The 2005 Budget and Tax Planning Seminar has been a successful one. We, as the organiser, reached Hotel Nikko as early as 7.15 in the morning, that is the latest! Well, I reached the hotel at 7.10 though, looking for cheap parking and finally bumped into Pei Geok and Siew Lan at the hotel's loading bay, unloading the budget booklets from their cars (passenger car of course - they don't drive any trucks or lorries to the hotel that day). I helped them to unload and waited for hotel service to move the booklets to the ballroom. I waited for more than half an hour for hotel service and finally reached the ballroom 45 minutes late.

Everyone was busy listening to orders from Carol, especially the "front-liners" that responsible to usher and register guest and VIPs on that day, until that no one ever asked me why I was late ("o,) I then joined in-da-flow, and my attention was redirected to two cameramen - Yu Han (the event's official photographer) and Chuan Maw. They started snapping pictures after Carol has finished her instructions, taking everyone's enthusiastic faces on that day while rushing on their own "booth" set-ups. I have no idea what happened to the pictures taken by Yu Han's camera, none of the pictures are published anywhere. Well, there are alot more pictures taken by Chuan Maw's camera shared in the Horwath's network . Double click on my (Wingkeong) sharing folder and look into the folder "Pics" if you have the access to the said "network neighbourhood".

The morning that day turned into a grand atmosphere when our guest of honour - Datuk Dr. Ng Yen Yen, Deputy Minister of Finance I made her way to the ballroom, accompanied by several cabinet ministers. Two of the Inland Revenue Board officers who were just arrived, did not claim their tags

but just walked in straight to the ballroom. Yvonne got sounded because she was supposed to inform the management as the arrival of two guest IRB officers, but none of the guest IRB officers told us they were IRB officers, and none of us would know that they were IRB officers, therefore they had the opportunity to walk in and out with Datuk Dr. Ng Yen Yen freely, without anybody knowing and without their tags on. We won't let this happen again next year.

The luncheon, tea breaks and the speeches went on smoothly. I got the chance to see some feedbacks by the guests, and overall, our Mr. Poon and Fennie speeched seemed to catch most of the guests attention. Congratulations! The seminar ended after 6 pm and we all rushed to get back home, and realised there was a heavy downpour outside, and 'duh' - Massive Traffic Jam!

Mr. Poon conveying his speech

75% of the organisers

Front liners for the event

Mr. Poon's big guns, Ms. AK 47, Mr. Artillery, etc.

Pretty ladies are hired to make the event more successful

Pictures courtesy of Chuan Maw

New Toyota Avanza

UMW Holdings Bhd will launch its latest Toyota Avanza model in October. The 6 seater 1.0 and 1.3 litre multi-purpose vehicle (MPV) will be launched at a very competitive price of below RM60,000, which is lower than the initial indicative price of close to RM70,000.

Toyota Avanza will be an Asean car with more than 40% of its content sourced from Asean countries. The car will be produced by Perodua (38%-owned by UMW) at its plant in Rawang for UMW. The model is targeted at younger drivers and we expect the Avanza to give the Perodua Kembara and Hyundai Atos a run for their money. We expect consumers to respond well to the new Avanza given its attractive pricing and Toyota’s strong branding. In view of the increased competition in the auto industry, UMW will step up its launches of new models. Apart from the Toyota Vios which was launched in 2003 and the Toyota Avanza soon, UMW will be launching a new sports utility vehicle (SUV) in mid-2005.

With the introduction of the new SUV model in 2005, Toyota will have a complete range of vehicles in Malaysia, which includes passenger cars, SUVs and MPVs. This is a vast improvement from Toyota’s previous models that had included only the Toyota Camry and Corolla passenger cars.

Apart from the increased product range, UMW has also recently re-introduced completely built-up (CBU) Toyota models. The latest CBU project is the face-lifted Toyota RAV4. UMW expects to sell about 100 units of the RAV4 per month with at a price tag of between RM179,000-RM186,000. UMW also plans to bring in Toyota Wish and Previa models from Thailand and Japan respectively in 2005. Although the CBU business is not a volume game, we believe that it would boost UMW’s earnings over the longer-term, as the margins are higher.