AEC Feed

UMW Holdings Bhd will double the company’s manufacturing capacity for Toyota cars following the completion of the new Bukit Raja manufacturing plant in 2019.
The new plant will start off with a production capacity of 50,000 cars per year, and will churn up to 100,000 cars at maximum capacity.
This will be on top of the company’s existing 49-year-old plant, which has a capacity of 75,000 vehicles a year. 
Speaking after UMW’s AGM on Thursday, president and group chief executive officer Badrul Feisal Abdul Rahim said the new plant would enable the company to manufacture more Toyota varieties of passenger cars. – The Star
Thirty-six sawmills, furniture factories shut in Saravan
Some 36 sawmills and furniture factories as well as 83 family-unit furniture plants in Saravan province have been closed as the factories were unauthorised by authorities.
Currently, Saravan has only 39 sawmills and furniture factories |that are legal and continuing to operate.
Phonxay Thepvongsa from the provincial Industry and Commerce Department told Vientiane Times recently the sawmills and furniture factories were ordered to close after the issuing of Prime Ministerial Order No 15 in May last year that imposed a ban on the export of all types of unfinished wooden products including timber and logs in an attempt to suppress corruption.
Moreover, over recent years authorities had seized more than 1,200 cubic metres of illegally sourced wood, while about 1,169 cubic metres had already been put up for tender, he said. – Vientiane Times
Johor Baru city centre plays catch-up
New developments to the west of Johor Baru's city centre in Malaysia may have stolen the thunder in recent years, but the centre of town is set to capitalise on its prime location and growing transport links to become a residential and business hot spot.
Johor Baru's city centre is well known to many Singaporeans as a vibrant, low-cost shopping and eating destination just across the causeway.
But the precinct, with its haphazard streets and ageing malls, is showing its age - and lags behind slick new neighbouring areas like Iskandar Puteri and Danga Bay. This is set to change in the next few years, as plans to rejuvenate the area have been set in motion, beginning with the Ibrahim International Business District (IIBD).The 20 billion ringgit (S$6.48 billion) plan, launched in November 2015, aims to transform the city centre into an international business district over the next decade by improving infrastructure.
Last Tuesday, the first public infrastructure project to improve accessibility through pedestrian bridges was unveiled. – The Straits Times
Indonesia's Pertamina profit drops by 25 per cent
Jakarta’s state oil and gas firm Pertamina saw profit drop by 24.75 per cent to US$760 million in the first quarter of this year from $1.01 billion in the same period last year due to a surge in prices for raw materials.
The price of crude oil surged by 59.3 per cent to $51 per barrel from US$32 per barrel in the same period, Pertamina president director Elia Massa Manik said on Wednesday.
Revenue, meanwhile, increased by 18.71 per cent to $10.1 billion from $8.55 billion. "Revenue increased by only 19 per cent mostly from non-subsidised product sales, despite the increase in crude oil price," Pertamina finance and business strategy director Arief Budiman told a press conference on Wednesday. “The surge in crude price also caused net income to decline. We cannot pass [the increase] to the public.” Total capital expenditure during the quarter surged by 208.3 per cent to $1.1 billion from $360 million as several projects carried out in 2016 had just been paid for in the first three months of this year. – The Jakarta Post