I finished a short trip to Penang on business, the last time I was there was in July 2007,for some technical training.
My impressions after about 1 year away,although I used to visit Penang every month on so in the past, is that the pace
of development has picked up tremendously as far as private property (there are condos and landed bungalows,semi-ds
and terraces aplenty with fanciful names like Hillcrest Residences and the Mayfair) and price psf of RM 300 psf to
RM 500 psf are expensive by Malaysian standards. However I feel these are artificially set high by the developers
and speculators and not reflective of any major immigration patterns of foreigners or new PRs coming to
live in Penang.
Penang is now managed by the opposition Gerakan party and the island has lot alot of its laid back charm,
compared with even 10 to 15 years ago.Where there was just kms of open beachfront and quaint hawker centres
near the beach,now there are many condos lining chock-a block along Gurney drive all the way to Ferringhi beach. Businesswise, in my very small microsegment outlook of the Reliability and Test Equipment market, it is very quiet,
and our reps have not sold anything for 1 and a half years.Manufacturing has been going downhill what with the lure of cheaper labour overseas (read India, China and Vietnam) and tourism dollar in my opinion is slowing (my Malaysian airways flight was not even half-full) and this being the school holidays in Singapore, many people are going to cheaper and
more value fo money locations like Bangkok,Ho Chinh Minh or even Hong Kong for cheaper tickets. I paid S$430
for a rountrip economy class and that is expensive for a 'shortbreak' holiday.
So if tourism is slowing,manufacturing is slowing, a change in the State Government what's up on the
horizon for Penang ? Nothing Much is what I figure. A lot of new buildings with No Buzz.
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