Proton may drive ASEAN + CHINA CAR
HUGE MARKET: Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia likely to work with China to develop project
KUALA LUMPUR: DRB-HICOM Bhd may initiate a drive among four nations to develop an Asean plus China car project, its top executive said.
Proton Holdings Bhd will be a key driver of the initiative, with potential partnerships between Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia, which have Southeast Asia’s three largest car markets, and China, which has the world’s largest automotive market.
“Proton will play a crucial part in the potential project,” DRB-HICOM Bhd group managing director Datuk Seri Mohd Khamil Jamil told the New Straits Times yesterday.
"We are one of the few countries in the world that has four national carmakers. Proton is the leader of the pack. It makes no sense for a Malaysian company to market a regional car without the presence of its top carmaker. It might now be an Asean + China car project as the Chinese market is huge."
DRB-HICOM Bhd, the country's biggest automotive company, fully owns unlisted Proton.
The group bought an initial 42.7 per cent stake in Proton from Khazanah Nasional Bhd for RM1.29 billion more than a year ago, and delisted the carmaker from Bursa Malaysia. Last year, Khamil had said 2020 was the earliest possible date that DRB-HICOM could come out with an Asean car.
In January last year, DRB-HICOM told Bursa Malaysia that one of the reasons it was buying Proton was because it could help develop Proton's presence in the regional market as an Asean carmaker.
Khamil refuted suggestions that the planned car project would be marketed under the Volkswagen-DRB-HICOM joint venture banner.
Business consulting firm Frost & Sullivan, in a report in August, said the Asean region was tipped to become the sixth biggest automotive market in the world by 2018.
The report stated that by 2018, vehicle sales in the region was expected to grow to 4.7 million units versus 2.4 million units sold in 2011.
Despite the huge appetite to own vehicles, the region does not have a home-grown car that can stamp its mark in the region. Rather, Malaysia and Thailand have been making a name for themselves by assembling cars from Germany and Japan.
Thailand is known as the Detroit of the East.
Source : New Straits Times
Date : 10 January 2013
Afternoon Highlight (10/01/13/07/705)
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