Over 100,000 expected to attend PMR Sabah
Published on: Fri, May 09, 2025 Text Size: The programme will also showcase the products by local entrepreneurs under the One District One Industry (SDSI) Borneo Region segment, featuring 178 Sabah-based businesses across various sectors. TAWAU: Over 100,000 people are expected to flock to the 2025 Madani Rakyat Programme (PMR) Sabah, a three-day government outreach event set to take place at the Tawau Municipal Council Square (MPT) here from today (Friday) to Sunday. According to the Ministry of Entrepreneur Development and Cooperatives (Kuskop) Cooperative, Hawkers and Small Traders Development Division Secretary, Azizul Alias, the turnout is expected to match or exceed the overwhelming response recorded at the 2024 PMR 'Sayangi Sabah' edition held in Kota Kinabalu last October. 'With a wide variety of engaging and beneficial activities planned, we're confident residents of Tawau and surrounding areas will show up in force for this edition of PMR,' he said. Among the programme's highlights are on-site government services, interactive sessions and business showcases, including the popular Jualan Madani initiative, which offers essential goods at discounted prices. A total of 36 booths from federal and state ministries and agencies will be present, alongside 204 public service touchpoints. Azizul added that the 2025 PMR Sabah will also feature local TikTok Shop entrepreneurs, particularly those operating from Tawau and nearby districts, through the special 'Yellow Bag' sales initiative. 'The event will also feature appearances by influencers and Sabah-born singer Bella Astillah, as well as the Tawau Mega Concert on Saturday night, involving top Malaysian artists, including Datuk Awie, Stacy, Akim, and Felix Agus,' he said. The programme will also showcase the products by local entrepreneurs under the One District One Industry (SDSI) Borneo Region segment, featuring 178 Sabah-based businesses across various sectors. 'These include food and beverages, handicrafts, homestay services, and health products,' Azizul said. With the theme 'Ending Poverty Through Entrepreneurship', the 2025 PMR Sabah is part of a nationwide government initiative spearheaded by the Performance Acceleration and Coordination Unit (Pacu) in collaboration with Kuskop as the lead ministry, and the Sabah Government as host, to bring essential government services directly to the people. * Follow us on Instagram and join our Telegram and/or WhatsApp channel(s) for the latest news you don't want to miss. * Do you have access to the Daily Express e-paper and online exclusive news? Check out subscription plans available.
Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express's Telegram channel. Daily Express Malaysia
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Star
31 minutes ago
- The Star
LG-backed Alphonso gears up for listing
SEOUL: US-based connected TV advertising company Alphonso, majority-owned by LG Electronics, is gearing up for a Nasdaq listing in the second half of 2025, positioning itself at the centre of LG's push to turn smart TVs into integrated digital platforms. At a press conference in Seoul on Tuesday, Alphonso founder and board member Ashish Chordia emphasised the company's role in advancing LG's long-term vision for media-centric home entertainment. 'Alphonso will be instrumental in turning LG's smart TVs into digital platforms where content, advertising, commerce and artificial intelligence seamlessly converge,' Chordia said. Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Mountain View, California, Alphonso specialises in TV viewership data analytics and personalised advertising. LG entered the company in 2020 through Zenith, a subsidiary of LG Electronics, which acquired a 65.7% stake. Since then, Alphonso has launched LG Ad Solutions and rapidly expanded across North America, Europe and Latin America. Leveraging LG's webOS-powered smart TV ecosystem, which now encompasses more than 200 million devices worldwide, Alphonso has strengthened monetisation capabilities through targeted advertising. Its core technology, automatic content recognition embedded in LG smart TVs, enables real-time tracking of viewing behaviour, allowing advertisers to manage campaigns from audience targeting and ad delivery to performance analysis on a unified platform. Alphonso's advertising portfolio spans native home screen placements, commercials streamed via more than 350 live channels and 7,000 video-on-demand titles and cross-device campaigns that extend to mobile, tablet and desktop users. Chordia pointed to successful case studies as evidence of Alphonso's impact. A Lexus campaign tied to the US Open improved positive brand perception by 64% and boosted purchase intent by 37%. Wells Fargo expanded its audience reach by 17.2%, while a pharmaceutical brand increased engagement among Spanish-speaking viewers by 15%. Data analytics firm Experian recorded ad recall levels 13 times higher than the industry average. LG Electronics sees Alphonso as a key driver of its broader strategy to shift from a manufacturing-focused home entertainment business to a media and solutions-oriented division. In January, LG Electronics chief executive officer Cho Joo-wan revealed that advertising and content revenue generated through webOS surpassed one trillion won in 2023. By 2030, the company aims to grow platform-based service revenue more than five-fold, with platform operations expected to contribute over 20% of total operating profit. 'Through Alphonso, this vision will become a reality,' Chordia said, noting that the firm competes with Samsung Ads and Roku in the global connected TV market. 'We will continue to work with LG to accelerate technology investment, platform innovation and global expansion.' Alphonso has already filed a registration statement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. While declining to disclose specifics of the initial public offering timeline or deal size due to regulatory restrictions, the company confirmed that it has met the conditions for a US listing agreed upon at the time of Zenith's investment. — The Korea Herald/ANN
The Star
32 minutes ago
- The Star
Air Canada labour deal may reshape pay for North American crew
The union said it has reached a tentative deal that ends unpaid work. — Reuters MONTREAL: A crippling strike by Air Canada flight attendants that grounded thousands of flights over wages and unpaid labour is the latest blow to the airline industry's compensation system that does not fully pay cabin crew for their hours at work. The union, representing more than 10,000 Air Canada flight attendants, said on Tuesday they reached a tentative deal that ends unpaid work, without sharing further details. Analysts said any gains could influence upcoming contract negotiations in North America. The deal could also drive up structural costs in a cyclical industry. Labour is airlines' biggest operating expense after fuel. The four-day strike that stranded more than 500,000 passengers mirrors unrest at US carriers, where flight attendants cannot walk off the job until the National Mediation Board grants permission. But cabin crew at American, Southwest and Alaska Airlines last year rejected several contract deals, saying they did not address concerns about unpaid work. Flight attendants at United Airlines last month voted down a US$6bil tentative labour agreement, which did not provide compensation for time on the ground before and after flights. The Chicago-based airline's union is surveying its members before returning to bargaining in December. United and the union did not immediately respond to requests for comments. While cabin crew get paid for a minimum number of hours, they are mostly compensated when planes are in motion, neglecting the crucial tasks performed during boarding, deplaning and other ground operations. Unions said this amounts to significant unpaid labour. In previous contract negotiations, airlines secured concessions from workers as the industry was struggling due to economic downturns or the pandemic. But a runup in inflation, stagnant wages and increased workload have fuelled resentment among flight attendants, bolstering demands for a change in pay practices. 'The Air Canada strike helps negotiations everywhere. It defined the problem of ridiculous expectations for flight attendants to work without pay,' said Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, which represents 55,000 flight attendants at 20 airlines, including United. 'The striking flight attendants are an inspiration to working people everywhere.' Nelson spoke with Wesley Lesosky, head of Air Canada's flight attendants union to coordinate positions, representatives of both unions told Reuters. Shanyn Elliott, an Air Canada Rouge flight attendant, said when she started work in 2017, she would pick up long-haul flights to earn extra pay as her C$23 (US$16.60) hourly wage did not cover the cost of living. Adding to her frustration, frequent flight delays after the pandemic meant longer hours, said Elliott, who heads the strike committee for Air Canada flight attendants at the Canadian Union of Public Employees. Air Canada chief executive officer Michael Rousseau said the industry needed to review its compensation models. In an interview, he said the Canadian carrier has accepted the concept of ground pay, adding other airlines will likely look at their own models. — Reuters
The Star
8 hours ago
- The Star
French firm teams up with JetZero on hydrogen-powered flight
An H2 logo is pictured at the Hyvolution exhibition in Paris, France, January 28, 2025. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier/File Photo PARIS (Reuters) -A French technology startup unveiled plans on Wednesday to work with clean-aircraft venture JetZero to explore a potential hydrogen-powered variant of its futuristic all-wing design. The move by SHZ Advanced Technologies is likely to rekindle a debate over the potential for zero-emission flight, six months after Europe's Airbus put the brakes on plans to develop the world's first hydrogen-powered airliner. California-based JetZero aims to challenge the traditional duopoly of Airbus and Boeing by developing a so-called blended wing-body aircraft, which it claims will be able to cut fuel consumption - and therefore carbon emissions - in half. JetZero and SHZ now plan to work together under a NASA research programme to design systems capable of storing and distributing liquid hydrogen fuel, which could eliminate carbon emissions altogether and evolve into a variant of JetZero's Z4. Hydrogen is prized for its carbon-free emissions and high energy related to mass, which makes it lighter than normal fuel. However, it also takes up much more volume and must be cooled to -253 degrees Celsius, making storage a significant challenge. JetZero's blended wing-body design features a V-shaped fuselage that acts as a wing and reduces friction in the air, rather than the familiar wings and cylindrical fuselage. "Due to the wider fuselage, the airframe is far more compatible with (liquid hydrogen) fuel tanks without sacrificing passenger seating, as a 'tube and wing' airplane would," SHZ Advanced Technologies said on Wednesday. Airbus said in February it was slowing down efforts to produce a hydrogen-powered regional plane and dropped a target date of 2035, blaming a lack of supporting infrastructure. Boeing, by contrast, has been cool on the commercial viability of hydrogen flight altogether. The concept of a blended wing-body design has been around since the 1940s and led to the U.S. B-2 bomber, as well as the X-48 research project between Boeing and NASA some 18 years ago. JetZero is revisiting such designs as the aviation industry struggles to meet a target of net-zero emissions by 2050. Airbus has argued that combining such radical changes to the shape of a plane with an entirely new propulsion system would be too ambitious, and is focusing instead on hydrogen-based fuel cells inside a normal tubular aircraft configuration. But SHZ Advanced Technologies' co-founder Eric Schulz - a former senior executive at Rolls-Royce and Airbus - said JetZero would approach the task in two phases with the initial focus on a conventionally powered all-wing plane. Any hydrogen-based variant would come in a second step, he told Reuters. The French firm says it has developed hydrogen tanks that save space by avoiding the usual cylindrical shape needed for pressurised vessels and can fit more easily into the flowing contours of the Z4's fuselage. JetZero, whose backers include United Airlines, said in June it was on track to fly a full-scale prototype of the revolutionary 250-passenger airplane in 2027. (Reporting by Tim HepherEditing by Mark Potter)
