One stumbling block to building a Malaysian race, is the excessive inflow of movies from China, India and Indonesia.

In view of this, the Information Ministry will reduce imports of foreign films from these countries effective immediately.

Former Information Minister Abdul Kadir Sheikh Fadzir said the decision was made by the Cabinet as it feared that excessive imports of foreign films would affect efforts to build a Malaysian race.

"It's not that there will be a total ban (on the screening of foreign films), but the quantity will be reduced and these films will be replaced with locally made Chinese and Tamil films," he was quoted as saying by Bernama today.

He said the ministry would also enter into joint-ventures with foreign entrepreneurs to fulfil the demand from Malaysians who still liked foreign films.

The former minister said local production houses which had good relations with companies in China, India and Indonesia would be chosen to produce television programmes and films subject to certain conditions.

Last job

Abdul Kadir was representing Information Minister Zainuddin Maidin, who was supposed to chair the meeting.

"This is my last job. The meeting should have been scheduled several weeks earlier and chaired by Zainuddin. But he had to attend another meeting.

"I had to stand in for him because I knew the background to matters to be tabled at the meeting," he said.

The hour-long meeting discussed television programmes on joint-venture basis with producers from foreign countries, and attended by representatives from the Malaysian Tourism Promotion Board, Malaysian Hotels Association (MAH), Malaysian Association of Tour and Tourism Agents (Matta) One-Stop Centre for the entry of foreign stars, Malaysia Airlines and Air Asia.