By REUTERS

LONDON: British house prices fell last month and retail sales growth slowed abruptly according to two surveys on Tuesday that will raise concern the recovery is losing momentum.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors’ house price balance fell to 8 in the three months to July the first negative reading in a year from a downwardly revised +8 in the three months to June.

The new buyer enquiries balance fell for the second straight month while property coming on the market increased at its fastest pace since May 2007, leaving surveyors braced for further weakness in the coming months.

A survey from the British Retail Consortium, meanwhile, showed the value of sales last month was just 0.5% higher than a year ago on a like-for-like basis, less than half the 1.2% growth recorded in June.

While part of that weakness may be a natural correction after June’s World Cup-related strength, the compilers of the survey also pointed the finger at the weakening housing market and harsh government spending cuts to come.

“The overriding factor is consumer confidence. It’s fallen recently,” said Stephen Robertson, director-general of the BRC. “Talk of public spending cuts is unsettling customers and they are concentrating on essentials.”

Britain’s Conservative-led coalition government, which came to power in May, aims to slash spending in some areas by a quarter, potentially putting thousands of public sector jobs at risk.

With bank lending still restricted, many doubt whether the private sector will be in a position to pick up the slack.

Britain’s economy grew an unexpectedly strong 1.1% from April to June but most economists think that will be the high-water mark, with growth slowing for the remainder of the year.

The Bank of England will publish new growth and inflation forecasts today and is expected to downgrade its GDP forecasts for both 2011 and 2012.

The Bank has kept UK interest rates at a record low of 0.5% since March 2009 and while one policymaker has been calling for a rise, most analysts expect no change in policy for many months to come.

Although inflation remains well above the 2% target, some analysts think the central bank may even feel compelled to restart its quantitative easing scheme to prevent a relapse into recession.

- London Property Market

USA was in recession some time ago recently and now Japan may face recession. With prices of oil skyrocketting high and cost of loving increasing, many people are finding it hard to cope. The middle class and lower middle class are tightening their belts and trying to save whatever they can. They eat out less often, and car pool to save cost on gas. People need to change their lifestyles to suit the bad times in order to get by with their same income. And in the recent news, pirate in Somalia have hijacked 2 Malaysian ship and demanding millions of dollars for the release. Even a French yatch got hijacked with 2 French men in the latest incident. And USA is helping Malaysia in negotiating with the pirates. Thanks for the goodwill help.

It is a day of reckoning when DAP (Democratic Action Party) trounced Gerakan and BN in the recently concluded Malaysian 2008 General Election. Now we have a new Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng who was sworn in yesterday to be the people’s spokesperson. No longer do we have an academic Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon who was muted about the NEP (New Economic Policy) and could hardly fight for the Chinese rights. NEP was implemented by the second prime minister of Malaysia Tun Razak. It is biased and unfair to the Chinese and the Indians while enriching the Malays, more likely those in positions of political power.

To quote from Datuk Lim Keng Yaik, it is scary to see the UMNO Youth president, Datuk Hishamuddin wielding the keris (Malay sword) in their general assembly. This should stop. No wonder the Barisan Nasional lost quite a lot of seats. There has been much corruption, cronyism, and insensitive remarks made in the past by UMNO members. And we Chinese have to learn to bear with it and try to get along with them because they are in power. Hopefully with DAP in charge of Penang now, this will no longer be the case.

Tags : Lim Guan Eng, Penang’s new chief minister, Malaysian 2008 General Election, New Economic Policy, Democratic Action Party, DAP, Barisan National, NEP

The results of the Malaysian 2008 General Elections took everyone by surprise. Incumbent Barisan lost 4 more states – Penang, Kedah, Perak and Selangor to the opposition. What has really happened? There are some plausible reasons to this. When our former deputy prime minister, Anwar released the Lingam’s video to the press near election time, it was very destructive for the goverment to know that a common lawyer like Mr Lingam could broker the appointment of judges in high court. There was much corruption with the ‘Correct, Correct, Correct’ lawyer offering free tours, houses, handphones to top judges. This show how corrupt the judiciary is.

Secondly, churches were not allowed to use the word ‘Allah’ in their printing materials and in their preaching. What the heck! The word ‘Allah’ was used before Islam came to Malaysia. It shows how narrow minded the government is. And Bibles were confiscated recently by the customs that belong to a Baptist church. Looks like the citizen’s freedom is being eroded bit by bit.

People were also fedup especially the non-Malays of the NEP (New Economic Policy) favouring the bumiputras or simply the Malays. All government contracts are given to bumiputra companies only leaving out the other races, the Chinese and the Indians. No wonder Lee Kuan Yew said we were being marginalized just because we are more hardworking, diligent and rich. Most of the common Chinese in Penang have felt the pinch of NEP and they are not as rich as before. People are angry and therefore, don’t expect the rakyat to vote for you when you are not fair to all races to begin with. You preach one thing, but your actions speak another.

Since Penang is now in the hands of the opposition, I hope future tenders will be fair to all races and not solely for bumiputras only. Hopefully my company will be able to participate in sports open tenders meant for anyone and any race on a fairer system. I also hope that goverment planned projects to develop Penang like the monorail, Penang’s second bridge, Penang Outer Ring Road and the like will not be delayed any further by the government since the rakyat or citizens have chosen the opposition to govern them. Congratulations to Lim Guan Eng and Karpal Singh of DAP, Datin Seri Wan Azizah of PKR and the other victorous candidates.

Tags : Malaysian 2008 General Election, reasons for 2008 Malaysian General Election results, Democratic Action Party, DAP, Barisan National