Zelan To Balance Local And Overseas Projects

Zelan To Balance Local And Overseas Projects
The Edge  

KUALA LUMPUR: ZELAN BHD [ ] will strategise its future business operations towards striking a balance in contribution from both its overseas and domestic projects, its chairman Datuk Anwar Aji said.

He said overseas projects currently accounted for more than 90% of the company's revenue, adding that it could not be too exposed to its current overseas projects but must also rely on domestic projects which had contributed positively to its bottom lines previously. "Most of the overseas projects were secured when building material prices were still low. When we executed the projects, we experienced a very high increase in cost of materials and suffered losses because of that," Anwar told a press conference after the company's AGM yesterday.

Anwar said the company would deliberate at length on some ideas that would see a fair split between overseas and domestic projects, stressing that the strategy was expected to be presented to the board of directors at its next meeting in October.

Despite challenging overseas projects, Anwar said Zelan would continue to work hard to secure them and it had lately received enquiries from the power plant and CONSTRUCTION [ ] sectors. On the domestic front, Anwar pointed out that the company was pursuing a few mega infrastructure projects whereby it had issued letters of interest to the parties concerned prior to pre-qualification.

He said the company had a balance of RM1.8 billion in its order book comprising mainly power plant construction projects overseas and that the order book would last till the fourth quarter of 2010.