PROTON MANAGING DIRECTOR RECEIVES MAJOR AUTOMOTIVE AWARDS
Proton Holdings Bhd’s managing director Datuk Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Mohamed Tahir was named “Automotive Man of the Year 2008″ for his efforts in leading the national car company.
Syed Zainal, whose three-year contract is expiring next month, implemented the long-term Asian Multi-Local OEM (AMLO) strategy to turn around an ailing domestic giant into a genuine global challenger.
The AMLO strategy marked Proton’s export thrust into Asean, China, India, the Middle East, North Africa in collaboration with local partners.
He was one of the winners at the New Straits Times/Maybank 2008 Awards here Thursday which also paid tribute to Naza founder Tan Sri S.M. Nasimuddin S.M. Amin.
Also present at the event was Second Finance Minister Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop.
In the award presentation, the Proton Saga BLM won in the Entry Level category.
“Overall Car of the Year” award went to Mazda6 2.5-litre which came out tops in the Executive Car (below RM200,000) category.
In addition, Mazda also won for Best in Class award for its seven-seater Mazda CX9 in the Premium SUV category.
The Jaguar XF, which is top choice in the Premium Executive Car (above RM200,000) category, won the Safety Award.
Overall, 15 categories of winners were announced.
Earlier, group editor-in-chief Datuk Hishamuddin Aun said in his speech that it was important that the review of the National Automotive Policy to be submitted by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry in March next year to balance the playing field for the automakers that have invested here, especially against the uncertainties.
“When there are so many variables, and when the world automotive industry is going through changes never experienced before, there is no econometric model powerful enough to predict the eventual outcome,” he said.
Citing the recent advertisement where customers could exchange their old jalopies for a RM5,000 voucher to buy a Savvy, Neo, Gen2 or a Perdana, Hishamuddin said this could well form the basis for an automotive scrap policy.
With some fine-tuning by the government, it should be a broad-based policy to cover all the local assemblers, he said.
Source : Bernama
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