To me, Chinese New Year is the time for family gathering, not the food, not the angpow and certainly not the holiday. Last year, I was in Japan during Chinese New Year because my stint in Japan would end on March, since it was just about two months time before I could go home for good, I decided not to go home during CNY, it was a big mistake, I ended up crying when I watched all those CNY advertisements (especially the advertisements by Bernas and Petronas) and I felt so sad! Anyway, now I am at home, I can have a gathering with all my family members this year for Chinese New Year. Yeah!
From July 2013, Bank Negara started the drive and encourage the public to use near new banknotes for angpow during Hari Raya Aidilfitri and Chinese New Year. Apparently, Bank Negara will print around 750 million pieces of RM1 and RM5 banknotes for the festivals, but 70% of it will be deposited back into the bank without any transaction or payment. Wow, the most interesting fact is printing that 500 million pieces of banknotes will consume more than 80 tonnes of ink and 2 million kWh of electricity which is enough to power 7,500 Malaysian homes for a month! (source: BNM)
Actually, other countries like Hong Kong and Singapore already started this initiative too. From the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, they use space and logistic as an example, in 2005, additional 300 million banknotes were issued before Chinese New Year, for the 300 million banknotes, it weighs 300 metric tonnes, occupies 500 cubic metres of storage space, and could fill 20 twenty-foot containers. The banks then had to arrange 500 trips with security escort to transport those brand new banknotes. Plus, it takes 400 metric tonnes of cotton to make the special paper needed to print 300 million banknotes! (source: HKMA)
For Singapore, their Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) just use the example of the energy saved and to prevent excess supply, 50 millions banknotes will have to be destroyed before the end of their lives. It is such a waste. (source: MAS and centralbanking) There is a very interesting article from The Star on this issue, can find it here.
If calculate the Malaysian scenario following the Hong Kong example, the 500 millions pieces of banknotes would weight around 500 metric tonnes, occupy 830 cubic metres of space and could fill 33 twenty-foot containers! Plus, Malaysia is very big and low density relative to Hong Kong, many trips would be needed to transport all those new banknotes to all the states!
Well, for me, as long as the banknotes are legal tender, I won't mind whether it's new banknotes, or it's old banknotes. Imagine that, how much energy we can conserve by using old banknotes! Maybe we couldn't give up the air conditioner, hot water bath, latest gadgets, but let us do this earth a little good by using old banknotes! Oh, and we can definitely reuse old angpow packets too! The amount of money for angpow and the newness of the banknotes is not important, the one important is the blessing of the giver to the receiver.
Happy Chinese New Year to everybody!
Actually, other countries like Hong Kong and Singapore already started this initiative too. From the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, they use space and logistic as an example, in 2005, additional 300 million banknotes were issued before Chinese New Year, for the 300 million banknotes, it weighs 300 metric tonnes, occupies 500 cubic metres of storage space, and could fill 20 twenty-foot containers. The banks then had to arrange 500 trips with security escort to transport those brand new banknotes. Plus, it takes 400 metric tonnes of cotton to make the special paper needed to print 300 million banknotes! (source: HKMA)
For Singapore, their Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) just use the example of the energy saved and to prevent excess supply, 50 millions banknotes will have to be destroyed before the end of their lives. It is such a waste. (source: MAS and centralbanking) There is a very interesting article from The Star on this issue, can find it here.
If calculate the Malaysian scenario following the Hong Kong example, the 500 millions pieces of banknotes would weight around 500 metric tonnes, occupy 830 cubic metres of space and could fill 33 twenty-foot containers! Plus, Malaysia is very big and low density relative to Hong Kong, many trips would be needed to transport all those new banknotes to all the states!
Well, for me, as long as the banknotes are legal tender, I won't mind whether it's new banknotes, or it's old banknotes. Imagine that, how much energy we can conserve by using old banknotes! Maybe we couldn't give up the air conditioner, hot water bath, latest gadgets, but let us do this earth a little good by using old banknotes! Oh, and we can definitely reuse old angpow packets too! The amount of money for angpow and the newness of the banknotes is not important, the one important is the blessing of the giver to the receiver.
Happy Chinese New Year to everybody!
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| Poster from Bank Negara Malaysia |
*To write this article, I googled a lot and found out that for the red packet, Malaysians call it angpow, Singaporean use hongpao and Hong Kongers name it as laisee.
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