The powerful Religious Affairs Department permeates daily life; its activities include sponsoring Islamic pilgrimages and establishing village mosque committees. Sports facilities tend to be privately maintained, with some athletic groups sponsored through the Brunei Amateur Athletic Association. There are four chambers of commerce in the country. The Council of Women of Negara Brunei Darussalam, founded in 1985, strives to improve the economic, cultural, and social status of women. Nongovernmental youth movements in Brunei include the Brunei Youth Council, Boy Scouts, and Girl Guides. The Brunei National Olympic Committee coordinates activities for national youth sports federations.
Brunei Darussalam - Libraries and museums
The University of Brunei at Gadon holds 29,000 volumes, while the Brunei Museum houses 60,000. The Public Library Service has a total of 311,000 volumes.
Brunei has approximately nine museums, most of which are in the capital city of Bandar Seri Begawan. Notable are the Brunei Museum, which exhibits ethnology and the history of Borneo Island; the Malay Technology Museum; the Royal Regalia Gallery, a fine arts museum opened in 1992; and the Royal Brunei Armed Forces Museum, which features the world's fastest patrol boat.
Brunei Darussalam - Education
The state provides free education from kindergarten up, including university training abroad. As of 1995, 93% of primary-schoolage children were enrolled in school, while 68% of those eligible attended secondary school. In 1996 there were 160 primary schools, with 432,941 pupils. Secondary schools had 30,470 students and 2,961 teachers in the same year. The pupil-teacher ratio at the primary level was 13 to 1 in 1999. For the year 2000, adult illiteracy rates were estimated at 8.4% (males, 5.3%; females, 11.8%). Education is compulsory between the ages of 5 and 16. Six years of primary are followed by seven years of secondary education. The official policy is to promote bilingual education, Malay and English, in all government-supported schools. As of 1999, public expenditure on education was estimated at 4.4% of GDP.
Foreigners generally attend private mission schools, the International School, and the Chinese School. Brunei Shell also funds several schools, and there are numerous religious academies. There are two teacher-training colleges and five vocational technical schools, including an agricultural training center. Brunei also has a university, established in 1985, and institutes of education and technology. The University of Brunei Darussalam (founded in 1985) has faculties for education, arts and social sciences, science, and management and administration. In 1996, 1,270 students were enrolled in institutes of higher education. Many students, however, continue their education in foreign universities at government expense.
Brunei Darussalam - Housing
Since the mid-1970s, the government has supported an ongoing housing program through the National Development Plan to encourage and support homeownership for all citizens. As of 2000, interest-free home loans were available to all citizens (there was no pesronal income tax within the country either), however, this may change as the government reconsiders the sustainability of its oil-based economy. Through the Landless Indigenous Citizens Housing Scheme (LICS), the government has constructed at least eight housing project sites to offer affordable, modern housing to low-income residents. From 1972–1997, over 4,000 new homes were built through the LICS.
Brunei Darussalam - Health
The state provides free medical care and remote regions are served by mobile clinics and a flying doctor service; there is also a school health service. As of 1996, there were eight hospitals (four of which are run by the government). Medical personnel in 1991 included 197 physicians. In 1989, there were 8 pharmacists and 30 dentists. The death rate went from 4.2 per 1,000 people in 1974 to 5.2 per 1,000 in 1999. In 1999, the infant mortality rate was 22.8 per 1,000 live births. Life expectancy in 1999 was estimated at 71.8 years. In 1990, 96% of the population had access to health care services and 90% had access to safe drinking water. During 1994, 92% of the country's children were immunized against measles. Malaria has been eradicated from Brunei (although it remains a problem in adjacent Sarawak) and cholera is close to nonexistent. There is, however, still some risk of filariasis, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, and intestinal flu. In 1996, there were six new cases of AIDS reported. As of 1999, the number of people living with HIV/AIDS was estimated at fewer than 100.
Brunei Darussalam - Social development
The state provides free medical care, and remote regions are served by mobile clinics and a flying doctor service; there is also a school health service. As of 1996, there were 8 hospitals (4 of which are run by the government). Medical personnel in 1991 included 197 physicians, and, in 1989, 8 pharmacists and 30 dentists. The death rate went from 4.2 per 1,000 population in 1974 to 5.2 per 1,000 in 1999. In 1999, the infant mortality rate was 22.8 per 1,000 live births. Life expectancy in 1999 was estimated at 71.8 years. In 1990, 96% of the population had access to health care services, and 90% had access to safe drinking water. During 1994, 92% of the country's children were immunized against measles. Malaria has been eradicated from Brunei (although it remains a problem in adjacent Sarawak), and cholera is close to nonexistent. There is, however, still some risk of filariasis, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, and intestinal flu. In 1996, there were 6 new cases of AIDS reported.
Brunei Darussalam - Economic development
The two major themes that have guided Brunei's economic development plans have been the managed exploitation of its oil and gas resources, and diversification of the economy beyond the petroleum sector. Perrenially, it has been more successful at the first than the second. In the recent years, the problem has been aggravated by the scandalous collapse in 1998 of the Amedeo Development Corporation, the country's largest non-petroleum conglomerate, with revelations that under the management of the Sultan's younger brother, Pince Jefri, who was also Finance Minister and head of the Brunei Investment Agency (BIA), as much as $28 billion in public investment funds had been misallocated, and lost. What possibilities there were for economic diversification were per force put on hold for 1999 and 2000 while the government recovered not only from the loss of funds, but from the loss of confidence in its economic management. In 2001, however, the government announced a series of initiatives that indicated it had weathered the scandal, and was ready to revive its development efforts in both the petroleum and the non-petroleum sectors. In March, Global Everygreen, a government entity, announced that all outstanding debts of the Amedeo Corporation had been settled out-of-court, and that it was, further, taking over a number of the projects Amedeo had started with the intention of completing many of them. Later in 2001, the government created a new Brunei Economic Development Board (BEDB) charged expressly with implementing government policies to encourage domestic investment and attract foreign investment that would contribute to Brunei's economic development. As head of the BEDB, effective July 2002, the government appointed John A. Perry, a British national who had most recently been a managing director for Totalfina Elf in Asia.
For years virtually all of Brunei's oil and gas exploration, development, processing and trading was conducted by Brunei Shell Petroleum Corporation (BSP), a 50–50 joint venture of the government and Royal Dutch/Shell. In November 2001, however, Sultan Bolkiah announced the creation of a wholly government-owned, national oil company, the Brunei National Petroleum Company Sendirian Berhad—PetroleumBRUNEI, for short— which would "play a more active role in both petroleum exploration and development." The government also announced that in the future Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs) would replace concessions in the oil and gas sector. In 2002, two PSCs were reached with consortiums that included Australian, French, Japanese, and American companies, and only one of which included Royal Dutch/Shell, for the first two deep sea parcels opened in Brunei's Exclusive Economy Zone. Two of BSP's concessions are up for renewal in 2003, which the government may use as an opening for introducing more new players.
Brunei's economic development initiatives have been structured in terms of a series of National Development Plans. The two main traditional employers were the government, which absorbs about half the work force, and Brunei Shell Petroleum. Development efforts for a non-oil, non-state sector and the potential for increasing foreign investment have been limited by the small domestic market, a shortage of skilled manpower, and relatively high labor and transport costs. The national development plan for 1986–90 (the fifth) was, like the subsequent ones, concerned with diversification of the economy in order to prepare for the time when oil and gas reserves would run out. It emphasized development of the agricultural sector to lessen the country's reliance on imported foods. Industrial development projects focused on light industries, but also included plants for the production of cement and precast concrete. Service industries were encouraged, especially banking and finance, in the hope of developing Brunei into an international financial center. The establishment of a development bank also ranked high on the government's agenda. The sixth national development plan (1991–95) gave special emphases to stimulating growth of the private sector, to promoting human resources and industrial development. The largest budget allocation was for social services (29.3%), with equal percentages for public utilities and transport and communications (20% each), 10% allocated to trade and industry, and about 7% to security forces. The ambitious programs of the seventh national development plan for 1996 to 2000 to achieve diversifcation through increased privatization, and domestic and foreign investment were shattered in the double blow of the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and the scandalous collapse of the Amedeo Corporation, Brunei's flagship investment conglomerate, in 1998. Most of this rest of this plan period was spent recovering from the effects of the loss of funds and loss of business confidence. The eighth national development plan (2001 to 2005) has added a more aggressive and engaged exploitation of the oil and gas sector to the perennial concern with diversification beyond this sector. In late 2001, the government announced that an additional $1 billion would be made available for development projects in 2002.
