2009 Annual Report - ChartNexus

Developing New Products
Chairman’s Statement
To surmount a challenging industry and to appeal to an ever-discerning marketplace,
PROTON must continue to produce exciting, market-centric, value-for-money products to
win over the hearts of the consumers. In this respect, PROTON has embarked on various
programmes to enhance its product line-up, with refreshers for the Saga, Persona, Waja
and Gen.2 planned for the next financial year. Further ahead, plans are in place for the
Waja and Perdana replacement models targeted to revitalise the hugely successful but
aging models.
To underline PROTON’s global competitiveness and to reaffirm our global reach, we have
also embarked on a global small car programme which is crucial in our efforts to establish
PROTON in the overseas market. Conceptually, this vehicle will be a competitively priced,
small and trendy hatch, with a small capacity engine that meets all emission standards.
At the same time, PROTON is also mindful that it has to enhance its powertrain to suit the
needs of today’s regulatory requirements and the demands of a growing environmentallyfriendly
and cost-conscious customer base. To this end, PROTON, together with Lotus,
kicked off the aptly named Phoenix Project to ensure that our powertrain offerings will
satisfy these needs and perfectly complement our cars.
Expanding Exports
PROTON continued to forge ahead in our quest to expand our reach and product offerings
in key export markets during the year under review. To do otherwise would be detrimental
to the Group given that our long-term success hinges on the brand’s ability to sell more cars
well beyond the boundaries of our local market.
We are well aware that the operating landscape for the passenger car industry globally
will invariably be impacted by the global economic crisis. Fortunately, our export strategy
over the past few years has been to focus on high-growth markets regionally and selected
emerging markets, namely ASEAN, China, India, and the Middle East–North Africa; many
of which are markets that have been relatively resilient from the fallout of the economic
crisis.
PROTON 2009 ANNUAL REPORT
49