FRONTKEN CORPORATION BERHAD
(651020-T)
ANNUAL REPORT 2014
10
CHAIRMAN’S
STATEMENT
(cont’d)
In 2014, our efforts in focusing on the quality of
our services and efficiencies so as to maintain our
competitiveness for enhancing business performance
has been rewarding and this was reflected in the
significant improvement in our profits as compared to
year 2013.
The domestic market is expected to grow at a better
pace as management continues to introduce new
initiatives. With the completion of our Group’s acquisition
of 45% stake in TTES, it has also started to show the
desired synergised effects to our Group and contributed
positively to our Group’s result since its acquisition. Our
Group is confident that TTES will continue to improve its
overall performance in 2015. I would like to also mention
that the partnership has yielded positive outcome to
our performance and would continue to reinforce our
resources to this partnership. Our overall focus continues
to remain in our core activities to ensure sustainable
growth.
The regional markets are expected to grow with the
encouraging outlook in Taiwan’s semi-conductor sector,
our Group is also confident that our Taiwan subsidiary will
continue to deliver positive result to our Group. Taiwan
continues to be our prime engine of growth for the region.
We will also continue to strategise and strengthen our
presence in Singapore, Philippines and Indonesia by
improving efficiency in all areas of operations.
Our Group envisages that the overall business conditions
in year 2015 will still be challenging amidst global
uncertain economic conditions and slower growth in the
regional economies. Our Group’s ATB project in Tanjung
Bin is expected to be completed and delivered to our
customer this year. Nevertheless, our Group believes that
with the right marketing approach, our Group’s business
prospect in year 2015 remains positive and encouraging
barring unforeseen circumstances. With the strong
support of our Board and management, coupled with
the right approaches, I believed our business prospect
will remain positive and encouraging. Our Group takes
cognisance that to remain competitive, we will continue
with our series of improvement measures by improving
our cost base, enhanced our cross selling for greater
operational synergies and implementing best practice
margin management and sourcing strategy to deliver
better value propositions to our customers. We will
continue to adopt these measures in 2015.
Our key priorities for the year 2014 will continue to be
adopted for the growth of our business in 2015. Likewise,
we will continue with our costing management to protect
our earnings, exercise prudence in liquidity management,
disciplined execution of strategy whilst continuing to
focus on the fundamentals of our Group’s business.
We will seek to maximise our profitability, to manage our
revenue and costs with good care.
According to published reports, this year will be a
challenging year for the Malaysian economy. The
economy growth is projected to be moderate which is
dependent on the magnitude of fluctuations in crude oil
prices and also movements of the Ringgit exchange rate
against currencies of our major trading partners. Other
factors will be the shocks from the commodity terms
of trade, Ringgit depreciation and anticipated higher
interest rates environment which are expected to affect
Malaysia’s domestic macroeconomic fundamentals in
the short term. It is hoped that these are merely short
term and shall dissipate in the medium and long-term
as part of the economic cycle.
Based on the uncertain challenges faced by our Group
in year 2015, your Board would not be recommending
any final dividend for the year ended 2014 as we still
need to conserve our cash for future expansion and
investing activities.
Appreciation
As always, I would like to thank all my colleagues for their
tremendous hard work which has been the driving force
behind our better performance despite the challenging
business environment.
I also wish to thank our shareholders for their continued
patience, trust and loyalty. In addition, our thanks to
our valued customers, bankers, suppliers and business
associates for their continuing support and confidence.
Lastly, my heartfelt thanks go to my fellow Board
members for their commitment and guidance to me
and the Group.
Sincerely
NG WAI PIN
Chairman
