Archive for Local News

UPDATE: Nissan Sylphy coming in Q2 2008 – Edaran Tan Chong Motor has announced that the new Nissan Sylphy will be available in Q2 2008. Click for more details.

Nissan strikes back with it’s new Sentra which was quietly launched today. It took me pretty much by suprise. I had seen the new Sentra a week or two back when a blog reader Dr. Chai sent a picture to me. Didn’t blog it as there was only one picture. I saw the advertisement in The Star today and I went OMG! New Sentra!

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Honda Malaysia Sdn Bhd wants to focus on selling CKD cars instead of CBU cars due to the government’s moves to re-examine the CBU import values.

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Proton and EON’s board have sent statements to Bursa Malaysia that their directors and major shareholders were not aware of any decision of Proton wanting to buy DRB-Hicom’s stake in EON.

Source

The new Honda City was unveiled today (11/10/2005) after a marketing campaign to build up hype for it for the past month or so. This new facelift is known as the Honda City ZX in Thailand.

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An unnamed industry source says that Proton may buy up DRB-Hicom’s 29.3% stake in car distributor Edaran Otomobil Nasional Bhd (EON).

The source said Proton may start with buying up DRB-Hicom shares, then proceed to buy up other stake held by government through the EPF and Khazanah Nasional which owns 12% and 6.2% respectively.

The plan is to eventually combine Proton Edar and EON.

Source

The Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) has sent a letter to the Road Transport Department (RTD) to inform them that Wald-tuned vehicles are now allowed to be registered again.

The freeze on the issuance of APs for the Wald marque to Amazing Tempo Sdn Bhd had also been lifted. This means Amazing Tempo Sdn Bhd can now resume business.

The report by Malay Mail did not state what happened to investigations on Amazing Tempo Sdn Bhd’s non-compliance with import procedures, which included allegations of underdeclaring car prices to avoid tax. More details here.

Related Posts:
Why did MITI stop issuing APs to Walds Amazing Tempo Sdn Bhd?
Amazing Tempo Sdn Bhd’s press statement regarding AP freeze
MITI stopped issuing APs for Wald

Source: The Malay Mail

An 31 year old executive in Perodua has been detained by the Anti-Corruption Agency for arranging faster delivery for the Perodua Myvi car, which currently has a reported waiting list of seven months long.

The man had been working with certain Perodua dealers to enable their customers to get their Perodua Myvi delivered faster at an additional cost of about RM2-4K each. This fees was to be split 50-50 between him and the dealers.

The ACA also detained a 41-year old car dealer from Klang involved in this scheme. One that is found guilty of corruption can be fined up to RM10,000 or five times the bribe amount, whichever is higher, and between two weeks to 20 years in jail.

The Star reports initial investigations have shown the man had transactions which earned him up to RM40-50K so far. That would mean a RM200,000 fine.

Source: The Star

In a report by StarBiz, UMW Toyota has indicated 2006’s new model line-up will focus mainly on CBU models instead of CKD models. Rumoured models are Toyota Vitz, Toyota Wish and Toyota Harrier.

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Perodua has revised it’s break-even timeline to 2 years and 3 months instead of the original 3 years for the Perodua Myvi’s investment of RM210 million based on overwhelming sales.

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The raising retail petrol prices at the pumps have been hurting the dealers as well as consumers. President of Petroleum Dealers Association of Malaysia Alang Zari Ishak mentioned in a report to Bernama on Monday that dealers have had to pump in extra working capital to purchase stocks that don’t contribute to revenue.

Petrol dealers currently get 8 cents sales margin per litre of petrol and 3.5 sen per litre for diesel. These figures have not changed since 2001, even though fuel prices have been hiked a few times.

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