Saya merujuk kepada laporan The Star bertarikh 21 Ogos 2012 bertajuk “Car Prices In Malaysia To Drop Gradually?”. Laporan itu memetik sumber dalaman yang rapat dengan kerajaan berhubung cadangan rombakan Dasar Automotif Kebangsaan (NAP2012) untuk mengurangkan harga kereta.
Saya mengalu-alukan perkembangan ini kerana ia jelas mengesahkan pendirian KEADILAN selama ini bahawa penurunan harga kereta melalui pengurangan cukai eksais secara berperingkat-peringkat adalah sesuatu yang mampu dilakukan. Ia juga membuktikan bahawa kajian KEADILAN mengenai kesan buruk harga kereta yang tinggi turut dipersetujui oleh pakar-pakar dan pegawai kerajaan.
Pun begitu, ia membayangkan sikap bermuka-muka dan hipokrasi pimpinan Umno/Barisan Nasional yang secara berterusan mengkritik cadangan KEADILAN tersebut atas alasan ia akan memufliskan negara. Pemimpin seperti Saudara Khairy Jamaluddin, Ketua Pemuda Umno dan Menteri di Jabatan Perdana Menteri, Tan Sri Nor Yaakob telah membuat kenyataan rasmi menolak cadangan mengurangkan harga kereta seperti yang dibawa KEADILAN.
Oleh kerana adanya pertembungan maklumat yang disampaikan oleh pimpinan Umno/Barisan Nasional setakat ini, saya menyeru supaya Menteri Perdagangan Antarabangsa dan Industri (MITI), Dato’ Seri Mustapha Mohamad yang bertanggungjawab merombak Dasar Automotif Kebangsaan (NAP2012) supaya berterus terang kepada rakyat apakah sebenarnya dasar kerajaan Umno/Barisan Nasional berhubung penurunan harga kereta?
Sekiranya beliau bersetuju dengan cadangan KEADILAN untuk mengurangkan cukai eksais secara berperingkat dan menurunkan harga kereta, beliau wajar memanggil kepimpinan Pakatan Rakyat untuk mengadakan rundingan meja bulat membincangkan pelaksanaan dasar ini kerana penurunan harga kereta adalah satu-satunya isu nasional yang mendapat konsensus di kedua-dua belah pihak (Pakatan Rakyat dan Barisan Nasional).
Saya juga menyeru supaya Saudara Khairy Jamaluddin dan Tan Sri Nor Yaakob menarik balik kenyataan mereka sebelum ini mengkritik cadangan KEADILAN.
Malah, saya mengalu-alukan Saudara Khairy untuk turut serta bersama-sama mempromosikan kempen #turunkanhargakereta dengan menaiki kereta rasmi Cheapmobile ke tempat-tempat strategik di sekitar Kuala Lumpur dan mengedarkan pelekat kereta kempen.
Saya masih yakin bahawa penurunan harga kereta melalui pengurangan cukai eksais secara berperingkat adalah langkah pertama untuk menyelesaikan pelbagai masalah berhubung ekonomi rakyat, pengangkutan, keselamatan dan pencemaran alam sekitar.
KEADILAN percaya dengan harga kereta yang murah:
1. Beban hutang isi rumah rakyat akan diringankan dan wang lebihan boleh digunakan untuk pelaburan lain yang lebih penting seperti rumah, pendidikan, kesihatan dan lain-lain;
2. Liberalisasi pasaran kenderaan di Malaysia memaksa kerajaan meningkatkan kapasiti dan mutu pengangkutan awam di negara ini bagi mengimbangi risiko kesesakan jalan raya;
3. Harga kereta yang lebih murah memungkinkan dasar tempoh umur kereta (car scrap policy) dilaksanakan untuk mengurangkan jumlah kenderaan persendirian yang telah mencecah 10 juta;
4. Harga kereta yang lebih murah membolehkan rakyat memiliki kereta yang lebih berkualiti dan selamat, seterusnya mengurangkan kemalangan jalan raya;
5. Kereta yang lebih berkualiti dan berteknologi hijau mampu dimiliki rakyat dan mengurangkan pencemaran alam sekitar; dan
6. Lebih banyak kereta berteknologi hijau dan lebih berkualiti akan mengurangkan penggunaan petrol dan seterusnya mengurangkan beban subsidi bahan api negara.
Oleh kerana dasar harga kereta yang lebih rendah ini mempunyai kesan yang besar kepada negara seperti yang dijelaskan di atas, KEADILAN akan bekerjasama dengan rakan-rakan di dalam Pakatan Rakyat untuk membawa kempen ini ke bawah tanpa mempedulikan tindakan Umno/Barisan Nasional yang seterusnya kerana saya yakin Umno/Barisan Nasional tidak ikhlas untuk menurunkan harga kereta.
RAFIZI RAMLI
PENGARAH STRATEGI KEADILAN
22 OGOS 2012
Terbaik YB 🙂
RAFIZI 2 – KJ 0. CAMNO OXFORD BOY BLEY KENA 2 BIJIK NI…
well done bro….keep on
Mate, is there anything serious you guys working on the public transportation? In line with your work on car price, i believe in parallel the public transportation agenda must be made available too. KTM komuter has been in operations since 1995 & as a frequent commuter from Kajang, it’s been a terrible experince going to work from Kajang to KL. i hope you guys are visionary enough to work out a framework that will eventually allow people cheaper houses in Ipoh or Melaka and then travel to work via fast train or better bullet train. What do you think?
Anyway, when are you guys working on a Pakatan Rakyat big umbrella coalition/party like BN? Saying or hearing this is an initiative by Keadilan or efforts undertaken by DAP sounds very much like how the current administrator sounds like.
sgt bgs..lagi bgs klau hrga rmh pn dpt dikawal..hrga sangat mahal..krja dh 4 thn xmmpu beli rmh pertama lagi..
Govt control on house prices is a must.
Present govt just leave it to the so call “supply and demand”.
What actually happened is the wolves decide the housing prices. Pricing not based on supply & demand, raw material and labour cost etc. But based on how much can be milked from the masses. They decide that 2generations coughing up a hefty portion of their income to pay for a house is acceptable to them.
You buy a house for your wife and kids and your son will make the final instalment repayment by the time he is 40years old.
Well done bro. Please continue to highlights wrong doing by BN factually after much research and validations being done.Prove to them that PR and PKR especially are not like them but much better and have members with brain to help run the country with PAS and DAP
come PRU13 🙂
^^….good job.
Crazy car price and tax is the root cause that robbed most ordinary Malaysians’ income at early stage
When more than 50pct income wasted just to pay car taxes and made worse by Compund Interest work against you (car loans debt), what is left to purchase a decent house for next 20-25 years?
That’s why Car Taxes killing off young working Malaysians’ early income and savings which ultimately endanger their retirement life
It’s big different if RM25K(average car tax rate) saved from crazy car taxes and let it be saved in bank accounts for few years (Compund Interest work for you) good enough as house downpayment be it low-cost house as long got roof over your head
RM25K CAR TAXES AFTER 9-YEARS CAR LOAN BECOME JUNK DEPRECIATION COSTS FOR NOTHING
BUT RM25K BANK SAVINGS OVER 9 YEARS EASILY DOUBLE THE AMOUNT (FOR HOUSE DOWNPAYMENT)!
CAR TAXES – MALAYSIA’S NO.1 RAKYAT ENEMY (BUT NO.2 IS RASUAH LAH OK)
CUKAI KERETA – PEMBUNUH MASA DEPAN RAKYAT NO.1!
LET’S GO FOR CHEAPER CAR PRICE!
_________________
Malaysians may not be financially ready to retire
Bernama August 26, 2012
KUALA LUMPUR: A study on retirement trends in East Asia has revealed the increasing vulnerability of Malaysians due to early retirement age as well as low rates of pension receipt under the Employees’ Provident Fund and the lack of old-age poverty floor.
The study report, “Balancing Tradition and Modernity: The Future of Retirement in East Asia”, is based on a survey that the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) conducted in Malaysia, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, according to Prudential in a statement on the survey findings.
The CSIS East Asia Retirement Survey reveals that an astonishing 92 per cent of current retirees in Malaysia report that they had already left the workforce by age 60 and suggests that Malaysia’s pattern of premature retirement will likely persist.
Malaysia is the only country in the survey whose fertility rate is above the 2.1 replacement level and the only one that will have a growing population and workforce in the coming decades, the report said.
“In China, the elderly share of the population will be approaching 30 per cent by 2040 — and in Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan it will be approaching 40 per cent. In Malaysia, it will still be under 20 per cent,” it said.
Malaysia’s early mandatory retirement age, however, offsets its demographic advantage in building an adequate and sustainable retirement system, it added.
Co-authored by Richard Jackson and Neil Howe, it is part of the multilayer Global Ageing Preparedness Project, which was launched by CSIS and British insurance giant Prudential plc in 2010.
The survey found four out of five of today’s retirees in Malaysia worry about “being poor and in need of money,” becoming “a burden on their children,” and being “in ill health and having no one to care for them” — much larger shares than in any of the other survey countries.
Their vulnerability is attributable to Malaysia’s unusually early retirement ages, which leaves retirees at risk of outliving their savings, as well as to low rates of pension receipt under the EPF and to the lack of an age-old poverty floor, the survey said. — Bernama
Retirement prospects are improving for the younger generations, who expect to be less dependent on the extended family than today’s retirees are and to rely more heavily on their own savings, it said.
But with one in five current workers still expecting to receive no pension benefits of any kind, the outlook for many is far from secure, it added.
Donald Kanak, Chairman of Prudential Corporation Asia, which is part of Prudential plc, said: “Responding to the challenges caused by an ageing population is critical to Asia’s future.
“It is critical that policy makers and the industry work together to address this vital question.”
Charlie Oropeza, Chief Executive Officer of Prudential Assurance Malaysia Bhd, said: “The findings of the CSIS Study reinforce the need for Malaysians to better plan and secure their financial position towards retirement.
“While the policymakers as well as the Malaysian Government have been introducing frameworks such as the Financial Blueprint to provide greater length and breadth of financial products and services, Malaysians need to be more aware and make themselves financially ready through prudent investment decisions. — Bernama
________________________
Our cars are costing us our homes
Food for thought
By DATUK ALAN TONG, The Star, Saturday July 14, 2012
Car and home costs relative to fresh gradautes’ salary
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8286/7566153250_fbae50ddd8.jpg
WHEN I first started my job as an architect in the 1960s, I was on a three-year contract with a monthly salary of RM628. I bought my first car, a Peugeot which cost RM7,724, equivalent to approximately one year of my salary. The car became my reliable companion for 14 years. Those were the good old days, when a car could be bought with just one year of a fresh graduate’s salary.
Circumstances have since changed. Today, for a fresh graduate to own a car in Malaysia, it will easily cost him four years of his salary to purchase a foreign car, and even a local car costs around two years of his salary. If we take into consideration his living expenses and other commitments, it may take him even longer to settle his car loan. Hence, it has left him with very little option but to take the maximum car loan financing tenure of nine years.
In the table illustration below, a fresh graduate in the Washington D.C. earning about RM11,000 (about US$3,500) per month can easily buy a Japanese Honda Civic or Toyota Corolla worth RM50,000 as it is only 0.4 times of his yearly salary.
On the other hand, a fresh graduate in Malaysia earning about RM2,500 per month needs to pay RM120,000 if he would like to buy the same type of car. It costs him four times his gross yearly salary. This ratio is 10 times higher than his US counterpart.
For youths in Malaysia, buying a car is more expensive both in real terms, and in terms of debt-to-income ratio. In reality, it means they have to either purchase a car with lower price tag or commit to a longer term loan to own a car, which cost them the opportunity of owning a home.
This situation requires our youth to choose between buying a car or a house first, and many have committed to own a car first, considering our public transportation system is still in the process of being improved.
Many fresh graduates in Malaysia who start to serve their car loan tend to delay their plan of purchasing a home.
Unfortunately by the time they can afford to purchase a home, be it three, five or nine years later, the price of a property would have escalated due to among other things, inflation, higher construction cost and higher land prices.
While it may be safe to say that their salary would also increase, generally speaking the increment may not aligned to the rate of inflation. In most cases, owning a home will be a huge debt lasting 30 to 40 years of housing loan repayment.
What can be done differently to change the circumstances? Is there a better way for them to financially plan their future? These are questions that Malaysian youths ought to consider before purchasing any big-ticket items.
Let’s look at the table again. It also lists the median price for three-bedroom apartments in the suburbs of these cities. The median price of an apartment in the Klang Valley is around RM300,000, equivalent to 10-year gross income of our fresh graduates. The affordability level is more favourable compared to other Asian countries, such as Indonesia and Thailand. The prices of same size apartments in Jakarta and Bangkok range from RM350,000 to RM400,000, and costing their fresh graduates 13 to 18 years of gross yearly income to purchase a house.
Therefore, when it comes to the question of home affordability in Malaysia, we are blessed compared to our regional peers.
However, there are many factors that contribute to the challenge for our youths to own a house. Two primary factors are the additional financial commitment of purchasing a car, and the relatively lower income level in our country compared to our Western counterparts.
When fresh graduates spend a substantial amount of their salary paying for a car, they are left with little savings to own a house, and their house affordability level decreases over the years as prices rise due to inflation.
Clearly the income level of our graduates has to rise, to enable better quality of living and higher affordability level, which is the current government’s focus to make Malaysia a high income nation by 2020.
Perhaps it is also time to re-look at our national car policy and how it has affected the house affordability level in Malaysia. From the numbers above, it is clear that our cars are costing us our homes.
________________________
Malaysians are paying too much for cars, money they could be using to increase quality of life
The Star, Saturday June 23, 2012
A QUESTION OF BUSINESS
By P. GUNASEGARAM
IT has been reported that the National Automotive Policy (NAP) will be reviewed. But unless the review addresses the problem of the high price of cars in Malaysia and reduce the burden on Malaysians, it will yet again be an abject failure.
As soon as the first Proton – the Saga – rolled off the production line in 1985, something happened to car prices – they started rising and in a matter of mere years, they were higher than most places in the world, sometimes as much as twice the price of cars in other markets.
I recall buying a brand new Mazda 1.5 hatchback for RM16,500 in 1982 but when I bought a Proton 1.3S in 1988, an inferior car to the Mazda in terms of comfort, space and performance six years later, the price had gone up to nearly RM26,000 or about 60% more – everything else in the same range was considerably more expensive.
The underlying reason for that was, simply put, tariff protection. To ensure a market for Proton cars, astronomical duties were imposed on imported cars – sometimes a 100% or more – and a similar but slightly less onerous fate descended upon locally assembled cars.
The upshot of all this was that soon after Proton had an iron grip on the market with four out of five cars sold being Proton. Look to the left and there is a Proton, look to the right and there is another, look behind and there’s one more and the one coming right towards you is yet another one. And what’s the other car I see, looks like a Sunny (Nissan).
That was the scenario for quite a while and then another Malaysian national car manufacturer was set up in 1992, Perodua, with technical help from Daihatsu of Japan, a Toyota subsidiary. Meantime, Proton was trying hard to get its own capability up and dissolved its partnership with Mitsubishi, which had resulted in a very reliable first generation Proton based on the Mitsubishi models.
From Government hands, ownership passed to private hands and a dalliance began with other manufacturers including Citroen which resulted in something called the Tiara based on an out-dated Citroen model. Models proliferated, suppliers were squeezed, quality was beginning to be affected and problems began to appear.
Proton went back into Government hands because the private owners could not hack it anymore, first Petronas and then Khazanah Nasional. An own engine was introduced. Quality dropped further and Perodua made inroads. Eventually Perodua overtook Proton as the main brand in the country.
There was a near-miss tie up with Volkswagen, which would have ensured Proton and the Malaysian car industry a bright future as the German company sought a regional manufacturing base. Top Government officials, apparently instigated by Proton top brass, baulked at the last minute although Khazanah Nasional was all for the deal.
Eventually, Proton moved back into private hands, the same owners yet again, DRB-Hicom, but with new major shareholders at this company to which Khazanah Nasional had sold its stake.
That’s a very brief history of the Malaysian automotive industry. Point to note is that 27 years after the first national car rolled off the production line, cars in Malaysia continue to be among the most expensive in the world and the so-called national manufacturers continue to be heavily protected.
The NAP has to clearly recognise that the national car industry is not going to survive unless the players have access to technology and have scale. Proton is going to have a problem because it has no permanent tie-up in terms of equity and management with a technology provider.
In that respect, Perodua is better off because it has both an equity and technology tie-up with Daihatsu, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of small cars. There are also possibilities for Daihatsu using Perodua as its regional manufacturing base which will go a long way towards preserving its future.
But no such prospect seems to be in store for Proton. It lost a golden opportunity with Volkswagen, one of the largest manufacturers in the world and Europe’s largest, which makes an array of high quality vehicles in all the product groups.
What is important now, and this is what the NAP should do, is liberalise the industry for the market which accounts for over 90% of sales in Malaysia, below 1800cc category.
Not only that, it should announce a phased withdrawal of import duties and excise tax say over five years so that there is no tax on cars. If a value-added tax is imposed, then that can apply to cars. This will make the industry wide open to competition and will force consolidation and tie-ups – either compete or perish.
The import duties were imposed to protect the national cars and the Government can’t say it provides a lot of revenue for it now. If it wants to roll back subsidies it must also roll back unfair taxes, which affect the general public.
After all, the car is the largest investment most people make after a house and Malaysians have high per capita ownership of cars, given the poor public transport. Removing taxes on cars will benefit a wide cross section of people and give them more disposable income that they can spend on other things, improve their quality of life, and provide a fillip to the economy.
We made a mistake 27 years ago when we went into car manufacturing. We had neither a comparative advantage nor technological capability. The only way we could have survived was a tie-up, which is why Perodua is successful while Proton is not now, although it initially was.
The Koreans, who entered the car industry about the same time, are far ahead of us now but that would also be because they were technologically much more prepared and able than us and have a much bigger local market.
But whatever the arguments, we must accept the national car project was not a complete success and it came at a great cost to the Malaysian public who would have paid many, many billions of ringgit more for the cars that they bought over the last 27 years than was necessary.
It is simply too much to expect them to continue paying much more for cars for an indefinite period of time.
I boycotted Proton/Perodua cars, Petronas stations long time ago.
I just can’t boycott TNB, Telekom & Astro.
Doing just about anything to hurt UMNO & cronies.
But they hurt me much more & more every year.
Salam saudara Rafizi,
Saya ada satu soalan. Apa yang akan berlaku pada pemilik kereta sedia ada (yang sudah/baru membeli kereta) selepas perlaksanaan ‘Turunkan Harga Kereta’ ini? Adakah masih menanggung beban hutang yang sama?
-Syam, Kajang-
Don’t worry lah pakcik.
Kerajaan PR boleh cover kerugian pada yg beli kereta (katakan 5tahun sebelum pengurangan cukai kereta) dengan banyak cara. Diskaun dalam incometax, interest rebate pada hutang bank dsb.
Fikirkan kebaikan jangka panjang. Kita perlu juga berkorban sikit. Lebih baik rugi sikit daripada terus menjadi lembu perahan susu puak UMNO ni.
bro…sila kaji harga motosikal berkuasa tinggi skali..harga kat Malaysia nie x masuk akal langsung….bagi saya,dengan penurunan harga Motosikal berkuasa tinggi nie..mungkin boleh mengurangkan gejala rempit dan kadar kemalangan motosikal kerana kita sedia maklum yang motosikal berkuasa tinggi nie mempunyai ciri-ciri keselamatan yang lebih baik. Dengan penurunan harga motosikal berkuasa tinggi,kerajan boleh mencadangkan untuk mengharamkan pengunaan motor kapcai di lebuhraya yang ternyata memang merbahaya dan mengundang kemalangan jalan raya.Hanya di Malaysia sahaja membenarkan penggunaan kapcai di lebuhraya..dan situasi ini tidak ada di negara-negara lain. Saya percaya,ramai pengguna-pengguna sebenarnya mampu memiliki motorsikal berkuasa tinggi sekiranya ianya dijual pada harga yang sepatutnya..just my 20 cent..
Kalau harga kereta turun. Public transport quality improved. Harga minyak maintain.
Haramkan terus pengunaan motosikal.
Motosikal ni bahaya. Moto besar tu nak belagak je. Kalau kemarok sangat nak naik moto besar, balik kampong nanti naik belakang kebau. Sama saja rasanya.
Jangan menyusahkan bro. Rafizi. Okeh.
Kereta berteknologi hijau memang sudah bebas cukai.
Apa akan jadi kepada hampir 11 ribu orang pekerja Proton?
Saya rasa cadangan tuan memang bernas, tapi mungkin boleh diperhalusi, seperti memberi cadangan untuk menangani masalah after effects yang akan berlaku. Contohnya, apa jadi kepada mereka yang masih berhutang dengan bank? Harga kereta terpakai pasti jatuh teruk sedangkan jumlah hutang masih tinggi? Dan adakah negara terpaksa mengeluarkan belanja lebih untuk menambah subsidi minyak yang penggunaannya pasti naik jika jumlah kenderaan semakin meningkat?
Bagaimana dengan kadar pencemaran? Juga masalah tempat letak kereta, kesesakan jalanraya dan sebagainya? Adakah cadangan ini akan menarik minat pelabur asing untuk mencabut kilang mereka di Siam atau Indonesia dan melabur kembali di sini? Thailand sudah menjadi pengeksport kenderaan terbesar ke Australia. Ada cadangan untuk memastikan kita juga boleh berjaya seperti Thailand?
Bro.Rafizi ramli,can you please check the monthly pay of all GLC CEO and directors. I think all of them must be drawing very,very fat paycheques .Please check also what had happened to all those billions given to the big co-operates by the PM when he became PM in 2009.
Gaji CEO Tenaga Nasional Bhd RM1.8million/year.
Tak masok bonus, benefit dsb…
Kerja dia ikut telunjuk UMNO je. Nak mengampu sikit, kena beri cadangan kat Najib macamana lagi nak perah poket rakyat melalui TNB.