Malaysia’s Mahathir Is Reviving His Dream of a New National Car
- Malaysia to start car brand with help from Southeast Asia
- Carmaker Proton sold 49.9% stake to China’s Geely last year
This article is for subscribers only.
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad is reviving his dream of a new national car after the automaker he started in the 1980s was privatized and a stake was later sold to a Chinese company.
“Our ambition is to start another national car, perhaps with some help from Southeast Asia,” he said at a Nikkei conference in Tokyo, his first official overseas trip since being reinstalled as premier last month. “Malaysia has the capacity to do almost 100 percent of the development of a new automobile. This can be obtained by having foreign partners.”