A price war has erupted in Malaysia over the final Harry Potter book a day before its release - leading four major bookstores to boycott its sale in protest, officials said today.

"Effective immediately, four major bookstore chains in Malaysia will no longer be selling Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in response to selected hypermarkets in Malaysia offering (the book at) RM69.90 from the recommended retail price of RM109.90 set by the sole distributor Penguin Books Malaysia," the bookstores said in a joint statement.

It said the decision to withdraw the books from MPH, Times, Popular and Harris bookstores nationwide is a protest at the "indiscriminate price discount."

"This means that the book will no longer be available for sale at these stores nationwide upon the worldwide release on July 21 and all events related to Harry Potter will be cancelled," it said.

Full-page advertisement

British hypermarket Tesco took a full-page colour advertisement in a local newspaper today to promote the sale of the book at a discount of 36 percent, or RM40 off the recommended retail price.

The bookshops, however, said that customers who have pre-ordered the book can still collect them from Saturday.

Earlier this week a British supermarket chain apologised to the publishers of the new Potter book amid a row which had threatened to keep the hotly awaited work off its shelves.

ASDA had accused publishers Bloomsbury of "attempting to hold children to ransom" by increasing the recommended sale price of the seventh and final Potter book to 17.99 pounds.

The row, which Bloomsbury said centred on unpaid bills and had nothing to do with the pricing policy, saw Bloomsbury cancel delivery of ASDA's 500,000 copies of the book.

But ASDA apologised "unreservedly" to Bloomsbury for its comments and said it will now receive copies of the book, which it pledged to sell at Britain's "best value" price.