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KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia must choose a domestic partner over a foreign
company for ailing carmaker Proton to preserve its status as a
national company, former Prime Minister Mahathir Muhammad said
Wednesday.
The ailing carmaker has seen a steady decline in
sales in recent years, and the government is under pressure to find
it a partner of which Germany’s Volkswagen AG and US auto giant
General Motors have been touted.
Three domestic automotive companies have also
expressed interest in buying a stake in the loss-making company.
“If you sell to a foreign company, it will no
longer be a national car. They have to sell to a local company,”
Mahathir, who is Proton adviser told reporters.
Malaysia has so far missed two self-imposed
deadlines to announce a partner for Proton, with analysts partly
attributing the wrangling to a government reluctance to cede control
of a national company to foreign hands.
Mahathir oversaw the creation of the ailing
carmaker in 1983 under his tenure as premier, and still remains
adviser to the company.
But in recent years Mahathir has singled out
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and his administration for
badly managing the company.
Mahathir laid Wednesday the blame for Proton’s
loss-making performance on the government’s car policy introduced
a year ago, which aims to boost competitiveness in the domestic auto
sector and cuts taxes on car imports.
“Everything it does for the automotive
industry would kill Proton,” he said.
Proton posted a third consecutive quarterly loss
of 281.45 million ringgit (US$81.91 million) in the three months to
December compared with a net profit of 86.51 million ringgit a year
earlier.
“It was such a profitable company and people
wanted to marry Proton,” Mahathir said.
“Today, it looses money all the time and the
management can’t stop the slide,” he said.
In January this year it lost its top dog status
after nearly a quarter-century as Malaysia’s biggest-selling
carmaker to another homegrown manufacturer, Perodua.
--AFP
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