Soon after Pak Lah announced the new tax regime for imported cars, many negative comments were made about Proton and its future. Most writers have provided a bleak future for Proton. Many have also provide reasons why Proton will face difficulty in the future.

In my opinion, Proton's 'problems' are caused by two reasons. Firstly, Proton has a perception problem - it is perceived by many as having a problematic product compared to other brands.

Secondly, it is caused by the Malaysian mentality that 'imported products must be better'. While the first may be comparatively easier to fix, the second cause is almost impossible to solve.

Proton must work 10 times harder to overcome the first problem. Proton should emulate the way Toyota has successfully implemented its world-renowned Toyota Manufacturing Systems which is proven to produce defect-free cars.

If Proton can, and I believe it can, solve the first problem, then it will have better future.

However, the second problem is more difficult to solve. Malaysians are well-known to worship imported products. Thus, even if Proton is able to improve the quality of its cars to the level of the imported brands, I doubt if Malaysians will be very proud Proton owners.

In fact, even if Proton is able to provide far better quality cars, Malaysians would still prefer imported ones. Ask any Malaysian today, if he could afford, what car would he prefer? Definitely not a Proton!

Thus, until Malaysians are willing to change their mindset to be proud of local products, no matter how good Proton cars is and will be, Proton will never be able to convince Malaysians to be proud owners of its cars.