Ong proposes Proton plant upgrade to complement New City aspiration
KUALA LUMPUR: Proton Holdings Bhd’s (Proton) plant in Tanjung Malim, Perak, should be expanded and upgraded to complement the New City aspiration announced by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib in the 2018 Budget last week.
Second Minister of International Trade and Industry, Datuk Seri Ong Ka Chuan, said the plant in Proton City was necessary in order to create more jobs and woo more people, especially youngsters, to migrate there.
Under the 2018 Budget announced last Friday, Najib said that the government has allocated RM1 billion for the five main corridors, including South 12 Perak region comprising Proton City, Educity and Youth City in Tanjung Malim, among others.
Ong, who is also member of Parliament for Tanjung Malim, said the Youth City plan would be put under the National Blue Ocean Strategy, where the government was looking for strategic locations nearer to the Klang Valley to build affordable house projects in the area for the youngsters.
“In the meeting with Najib, I said that we need to create more job opportunities in Tanjung Malim so the people would migrate and buy a house there. If there are no jobs, there is no use for us to build houses there.
“Also, we need to improve connectivity, between Tanjung Malim and Klang Valley, such as train or others, which would encourage people working in Klang Valley to purchase houses here,” he told reporters after delivering his speech at the Business Excellence CEO Forum 2017 here yesterday.
Ong said Proton currently has two plants, in Shah Alam and Tanjung Malim, where workers in Tanjung Malim plant were currently at about 1,400.
“Now, we have a bigger plan (for Proton), with Proton is currently in partnership with Geely, where we are planning to build a plant that could produce around 400,000 cars annually in the next five years, of which half of the output will be exported to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) market,” he said. — Bernama