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COMMENT | In GE13 (13th general election) in 2013, BN made a promise in their manifesto to reduce the price of cars between 20 percent and 30 percent by 2017.

But did this happen?

The answer is yes and no - depending on which model you are talking about and if we are comparing apple to apple or comparing green apples to red apples.

But firstly, what has the BN government done to reduce the notoriously high prices of cars under the past government of Dr Mahathir Mohamad?

Firstly, the practice of "franchisee Approved Permits" (as opposed to open APs for reconditioned cars) was restructured.

Franchise APs, are permits to bring in cars from a particular foreign factory to be sold through a particular company in Malaysia.

This means that at that time, if Honda Malaysia or Toyota Malaysia or any other official car distributor or manufacturer, wanted to bring in cars to sell a car of their own brand in Malaysia, they had to get a franchise AP for each unit of car they sell.

The problem then was that these official manufacturers and distributors were not issued the franchise APs directly but had to source them from certain individuals who were given the permits by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), then under Rafidah Aziz - even as late as the year 2005.

Three individuals at that time, dubbed the "Three AP Kings" got the bulk of these franchise APs and were reportedly making billions every year out of these permits.

However, this system was then abolished and today, car manufacturers and distributors get their franchise APs directly from MITI without going through or paying any middle-men as in the past.

In 2012, the government under Najib Abdul Razak also announced that car import tax from Japan will be abolished from 15 percent to zero percent in the year 2016. This has been done and has contributed to lower Japanese car prices...

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