Malaysia's National Automotive Policy and the Performance of Proton's Foreign and Local Vendors

This contribution seeks to examine the performance of Proton's government supported supplier programmes. Using secondary data the contribution compares the performance of local and foreign automotive parts suppliers. The results show that foreign suppliers performed better than local suppliers. Interviews suggest that access to superior technology from abroad is the prime determinant of the inferior performance of local suppliers compared to foreign suppliers. Local firms lack firm-specific advantages that foreign multinational suppliers enjoy.