From Ali Baba to Ali Bangla — the name changes every few years. The system does not. While Brunei debates who runs the shop, others have quietly built the supply chain behind it. The real question was never about the shopfront. It was always about the ecosystem.
#KopiTalkMHO
9 June 2026
From Ali Baba to Ali Bangla, the real story is not who runs the shop, but who built the ecosystem behind it.
By Malai Hassan Othman
The debate now begins, as many Brunei debates now do — not in Parliament, not in a policy paper, but in WhatsApp groups, TikTok clips and Instagram shares.
A familiar complaint has resurfaced: foreign vendors are mushrooming across retail, food services, backstreet shops, kampung businesses and even construction-related activities. Locals ask why the system appears easier for outsiders than for Bruneians themselves.
But the viral rant is only the trigger.
The real story is older, deeper and more uncomfortable.
Brunei has been here before. First, it was called Ali Baba — the familiar arrangement where a local licence holder allowed another party to run the business. Then, in 2019, Li Li Pang of Universiti Brunei Darussalam argued that the Brunei version had evolved. The expatriate partner was no longer typically Chinese, but increasingly from the Asian subcontinent. The paper called it Ali Chandran.
Today, with Bangladeshi operators increasingly visible in small retail, food services, supply activities and construction-linked businesses, some locals have begun calling the latest version Ali Bangla.
The names change.
The system survives.
And that is the real question.
Why?
Li Li Pang’s study already pointed to the uncomfortable mechanics: locals renting out licences, expatriates operating the businesses, weak monitoring, and a policy environment flexible enough for the arrangement to continue. The paper noted that locals were willing to sell or rent licences for lump sums or monthly payments, while enforcement was made difficult because the law did not directly address the practice.
Yet years later, the conversation has returned — louder, faster and more public.
This time, however, the issue should not be reduced to foreign vendors opening small shops.
That would be too simple.
What we are seeing is not merely the rise of shopfronts.
It is the quiet growth of business ecosystems.
Behind the grocery counter may be an importer. Behind the small shop may be a wholesaler. Behind the construction worker may be a subcontractor, a hardware supplier, a transport provider, a labour network and a community financing channel.
The shop is only the visible end of the chain.
The real strength is the chain itself.
Official retail and food-and-beverage data show the scale of what is at stake. In the first quarter of 2024 alone, Brunei’s retail sector generated almost BND448 million in sales. Department stores accounted for more than BND120 million while supermarkets generated another BND77 million. The food and beverage sector is equally significant, recording sales revenue of BND114.9 million in the third quarter of 2023.
These are not marginal activities operating at the edges of the economy.
They are major markets.
The competition to capture a share of those markets is therefore neither accidental nor surprising.
That is where Brunei must pay attention.
While some foreign business communities have quietly built supply networks, manpower networks, financing networks and distribution channels, many local businesses remain fragmented. Too many operate alone. Too many depend on temporary stalls, roadside selling, tamu spaces, small contracts or government support without developing the deeper commercial discipline needed to scale.
And when local collective enterprise should have been the answer, cooperatives have not always filled that space with distinction. Recent public disputes involving local cooperative bodies — claims of mismanagement, abuse of power and internal quarrels — reinforce a damaging perception that while others organise around markets, some local groups are weakened by poor governance and a failure of unity.
This is the uncomfortable comparison.
Foreign networks build ecosystems.
Local groups too often build committees.
That line may sound harsh.
But it points to a real problem.
If Brunei wants stronger local economic participation, it cannot simply ask locals to open shops. It must help them build supply chains, shared purchasing systems, financing pools, professional cooperatives, logistics capacity and disciplined business governance.
The issue is not that foreign entrepreneurs are hardworking.
Many are.
The issue is why, over time, others have succeeded in building stronger economic networks inside Brunei’s market while local entrepreneurship remains scattered, cautious and often dependent on policy slogans.
On paper, Brunei is not short of tools. Business registration systems exist. Labour controls exist. Immigration rules, entrepreneurship programmes, enforcement agencies and financial monitoring mechanisms all exist.
The question is no longer whether the government knows the problem.
The question is whether the delivery system is serious enough to change behaviour.
Li Li Pang’s paper suggested further research into how licence owners are found, how rents are paid, what guarantees are given, why locals do not enter the same markets, and whether urban planning should stop residential areas from turning into uncontrolled roadside commercial strips.
Those questions remain alive.
Perhaps too alive.
Because the issue has not disappeared.
It has evolved.
From Ali Baba to Ali Chandran to Ali Bangla, Brunei is not simply watching different communities take turns in the same business space.
It is watching the consequences of policy gaps, weak enforcement, passive licence ownership, fragile local business culture and the failure to build strong local economic ecosystems.
This first conversation should not end with blame.
It should begin with honesty.
If locals are renting out licences, why is passive income more attractive than enterprise?
If foreign operators can survive on thin margins, long hours and community support, why are local businesses not equally organised?
The answer to both questions points in the same direction — and that direction is not a regulation, a crackdown or a viral complaint.
It is a reckoning with what local economic culture has slowly become.
These questions deserve deeper treatment in the columns ahead.
For now, one thing is clear.
Ali Bangla is not the disease. It is the latest symptom.
The disease is deeper: weak business literacy, fragmented local enterprise, poor cooperative governance, uneven enforcement, limited financing, reactive planning and a culture still more comfortable renting opportunity than working it.
Until that changes, the next version will come.
Another name.
Another rant.
Another viral cycle.
And Brunei will again ask the same question it should have answered years ago.
KopiTalk with MHO • Malai Hassan Othman
Substack: kopitalkwithmho.substack.com • LinkedIn: Distribution
Part 1 of a continuing series on local economic participation in Brunei.
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