Check-in can be 30 minutes before departure, which allows me 10 minutes to get a cup of coffee at one of the spanking new cafes at the airport. It is then a three minutes’ walk through security, immigrations and boarding.
By 9.05am, my flight arrives in Singapore’s budget terminal, a brisk walk to immigrations and then to the taxi stand takes about eight minutes. I am sitting in my downtown Singapore office by 10am for my first meeting of the day – a staff discussion on making preparations for the launch of a new Asia equity fund.
One and a half hour later, I am walking to an office building nearby (about five minutes) for a scheduled meeting with the chief financial officer of a Singapore-listed property company, getting updates on its property projects in Singapore, China and Vietnam. Thereafter, another brisk walk to a 1pm lunch presentation by a China-listed company, who is in Singapore to give investors an update.
An afternoon tea-time chat and update with Maureen (a seasoned stockbroker in institutional sales with DBS Vickers) on regional stock markets at Segar Café in Capital Square concludes my meetings for the day. I then hop into a taxi back to the airport for the 4.40pm flight to Kuala Lumpur, arriving in Subang by 5.50pm and reach home in time for 7pm dinner.
My day in Singapore is easily done, affordable and now common for ordinary travelling business people like me; it has made my work as an Asia fund manager even more productive (the wonders of technology allows me to get updates on news, research and developments on listed companies we owned in Asia on my travelling Bloomberg and e-mails on my blackberry).
This commute is made possible, partly because of the advent of low-cost carriers (LCC) and the liberalisation of air travel in Asean; and in this case, the liberalisation of Kuala Lumpur–Singapore air route from 2008.
This was and continues to be, a highly lucrative route for Malaysia Airlines (MAS) and Singapore Airlines (SIA), and now also for LCCs due to its short distance and heavy traffic (the fourth-busiest in Asia).
The LCCs not only made it cheaper (previously about RM900 charged by both national airlines, now averages RM200 or lower for a round trip), it also added considerable options in terms of availability of flights (40 flights daily at last count) such as from Airasia, Firefly, Silk, Tiger and Jetstar, and including MAS and SIA.
Check-in for KL-Singapore flights previously needed to be two hours prior to departure, it is now 30 minutes at Subang airport. Faster as well as friendlier immigrations process on both sides of the airports makes it an even smoother trip.
Before the opening up of this route, there were fears that MAS may suffer at the hands of low-cost competitors. While it is true LCCs has made some headways, MAS has been competing valiantly (good example is Firefly).
In the mid to long term, I believe this will make MAS a stronger, better company. MAS is now more focused on the quality and value of its services; it is finding ways to improve productivity and increase efficiencies by reducing wastage and so forth.
I think this is a very good example of market liberalisation and free market competition benefiting consumers.
Looking further afield, I believe transport liberalisation between Malaysia and Singapore can also include rail networks. High-speed trains at an average speed of 300 kilometres per hour between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore has been proposed before – it will take about slightly more than one hour travelling time.
Interestingly, there has been massive development of high-speed railways (HSR) in China since 2004. HSR is defined as commercial train service with an average speed of 200 km/h and above. China today has the world’s longest HSR network with about 6,920km of routes in service as of last month, including 1,995km of rail lines with top speeds of 350 km/h. By way of comparison, Japan (the Shinkansen bullet train) and France (the TGV train) has an estimated 2,459km and 1,700km of HSR network respectively.
The benefits of HSR include, among others, fast and reliable means of moving large volumes of people in densely populated areas over long distances, and help boost economic productivity and competitiveness.
With a completed KL–Singapore HSR, the economic returns will be mutually beneficial; wouldn’t it be a great catalyst for more tourists, business travellers and a multitude of other service industries for both countries?
One intriguing thought is that the HSR will make working in Singapore or Malaysia a lot more appealing for global talents – these talents can even choose to live in KL, Seremban or Melaka and work in Singapore or vice-versa. Malaysian property prices may increase, especially in towns and cities where it has a stop (city councillors and property owners might want to start lobbying for a station). Property prices in KL will most likely receive a big boost.
In conclusion, I say we should embrace market liberalisation and not fear it – while liberalisation puts pressure for us to improve our competitiveness, it also brings out the best in us.
# The writer is the founder and chief investment officer of Singular Asset Management Sdn Bhd.
Singular Vision - By Teoh Kok Lin
thestar.com.my
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