23rd March, 2006

In today's Asia Morning Line - and please shout if you don't get this excellent daily summary of developments in Asia, but would like to - there was an interesting if slightly peripheral report by Niklas Olausson, our Hof R in Malaysia, who has just visited Sarawak. One of those nostalgic moments coming up I'm afraid, but it is 1994. I was invited by Asia Equity to go on a visit to Sarawak to see the site of the proposed Ekran sponsored Bakun Dam. The dam was to be situated on the Balui River in the most interior area of Sarawak in Borneo. The Balui cuts through the spiritual home of 10,000 indigenous peoples from 5 ethnic groups from 15 longhouse communities, one of which I was due to stay in for a couple of nights. It was a huge project and an environmental nightmare. It's due to be commissioned in 2009 apparently. But what a wheeze. Helicopters, river trips, longboats, jungle, cannibals. To this day I don't know how I got the trip sanctioned by Mr. Brennan, head of the office. Anyhow, as an intrepid Emerging Markets specialist at Barings off I went, leaving Sophie, 6 months pregnant with our second child, at home in Hong Kong. I flew down to Kuching on Friday evening and spent Saturday morning walking around town killing time before our helicopter flight that afternoon into the jungle. Alas, I returned to the hotel to find an urgent message to call Sophie. It transpired she was in a terrible state, suffering contractions supposedly and I was left in no doubt at all that my urgent return to HK was required. Talk about frustration. There was I in darkest Sarawak - I can tell you it didn't look much like the Sarawk depicted in Niklas's note attached below - just hours from one of the most exciting - if, admittedly, pointless - investment trips you can imagine and I have to scrap it. Amazingly, given my isolated state, it was just four hours after the phone conversation with Sophie that I rushed through the door of our flat to find her sitting in front of the television looking as right as rain, sipping a cup of tea and munching a Digestive biscuit. "Sorry," she said, in her defence, sheepishly. "I'm fine. It was a bad case of wind. I think I'd eaten too much chocolate."

Now, I'll put my hands up. I've got a Toyota Landcruiser. Hey...I've got a horse-box to tow about. But I think the Chancellor was feeble in his moves against gas-guzzlers. ’210 road tax is pathetic and a hopeless deterrent. The Chinese authorities have put him to shame every step of the way frankly. As I have mentioned previously they have got some proper long term pension planning in process and now the biggest ever face-lift to its consumption tax regime. The gaz-guzzlers note details some of the initiatives but China is focussing on more efficient use of resources with intent including taking action to discourage the use of disposable chopsticks.