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Officials are worried a crippling peninsula-wide electrical blackout has cast a shadow on investors' confidence in an ambitious project to make Malaysia the regional centre for the information age.

  Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said he was very disappointed and embarrassed by the 16-hour power failure on Saturday night. It caused millions of dollars in industrial losses.

  The blackout came just two days after Dr Mahathir launched the Multimedia Super Corridor, to be built near the capital Kuala Lumpur.

  He said it would be an 'environment especially crafted to meet the needs of leading-edge companies' from around the world.

  The Government's anxiety was reflected in remarks yesterday by the Minister of International Trade and Industry, Rafidah Aziz, who said frequent power disruptions had disheartened big investors who were unwilling to risk putting their money into Malaysia.

  She said investors realised the Government could not prevent blackouts due to natural causes such as lightning, but technical breakdowns were unacceptable.

  Ms Rafidah said Tenaga Nasional, the country's power authority, must do something to ensure Saturday's power disruption did not recur. 'The incident should be relegated to history otherwise they will become history,' she said.

  She disclosed that at a meeting in Japan last week investors raised the issue of Malaysia's 'delicate' electricity supply which had been knocked out by a lightning strike in 1992.

  'I promised them that the 1992 incident would not recur and our country now has a 32 per cent security margin in power supply,' she said.

  'But three days after huge opportunities were opened up by the meeting the whole of peninsular Malaysia was blacked out once again.

  'This is most embarrassing.'   The Multimedia Super Corridor is intended to be the crowning achievement of Malaysia's drive to become one of Asia's most technologically advanced countries.

  It will cover an area 15 kilometres wide and 50 km in length, spreading south of the capital, from Kuala Lumpur city centre, a major development project, to the new airport under construction at Sepang.

  Official concerns about the power failure have been offset by hopes that Malaysia's continuing economic strength, together with tax incentives and goodwill towards foreign companies, will continue to attract investment from abroad.

  The country's economic growth is expected to slow slightly this year, but will still exceed eight per cent.

  There was also encouraging news for the economy this week, with the announcement of a trade surplus in May.

  As a result, the deficit for the first five months of the year was M$1.372 billion (about HK$4 billion), compared with M$3.473 billion in the same period last year.



Blackouts deter investors