Cracks appear in Malaysia’s building spree

Spring Energy is the just the sort of homegrown, super successful, keenly entrepreneurial company that developing nations across the world crave. Based in a tidy three-story building not far from central Kuala Lumpur, the company’s influence extends across the Malaysian peninsula. Spring Energy operates six quarries across Malaysia, four ready-mix concrete batching plants, three asphalt plants, and a fleet of trucks, concrete mixers, and paving equipment. The company and its customers supply building materials for skyscrapers, smooth roads and industrial yards, boulders for sea walls and stone for high-speed rail lines. Never in its 21-year history, though, has Spring Energy signed as many construction contracts as it has in the last two years. The company now counts 1,000 employees. Its overflowing order book is a pure reflection of the infrastructure construction boom that over the last decade has altered Malaysia’s peninsula and island landscape.