Penang is the center of both tourism and industry in Malaysia. High technology foreign companies such as Intel, Advance Micro Devices and Sony have branches in Penang. Wages for workers are rising as their labor skills increase.

PENANG is where Malaysia's past meets its future. Tourists in search of a little colonial nostalgia can still go ballroom dancing in the crumbling grandeur of the Eastern & Oriental Hotel or may chance across an ancient guide book: "To Siam and Malaya in the Duke of Sutherland's Yacht". But tourists are not the only foreigners flocking to Penang. Scores of multinational companies have set up in the industrial parks on either side of the giant bridge that ...