Kedah Bersatu: DAP's take on freight forwarder bumi equity must be opposed

 

Kedah Bersatu has urged the public to oppose the DAP because it was against a temporarily shelved rule to compel freight forwarders with an International Integrated Logistic Services (IILS) licence to seek bumiputera shareholders.

In a statement today, Kedah Bersatu information chief Khairul Anuar Ramli said DAP was blocking the “bumiputera agenda” and thus must be opposed.

“As a country with the bumiputera as its core, we are compelled to work towards increasing the equity ownership of the bumiputera.

“But DAP has never been comfortable with this agenda,” he said.

Freight forwarders with a custom licence registered before 1976 are exempted from any bumiputera equity requirement while those registered later have a 30 percent requirement. Companies registered after 1990 have a 51 percent requirement.

Those with International Integrated Logistic Services (IILS) customs licences, however, do not have any bumiputera requirement.

Discriminatory rule

IILS is a status granted by the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (Mida) to logistics companies that provide logistics services along the value chain as a single entity on a regional or global scale.

Yesterday, the Federation of Malaysian Freight Forwarders (FMFF) said the Finance Ministry has imposed a rule for IILS licence holders to comply with a new 51 percent bumiputera equity rule by year-end.

However, FMFF president Alvin Chua said that the rule was discriminatory because foreign licence holders were exempt from the rule.

Moreover, Chua said it would be very difficult to find new partners in the current economic climate.

In a statement yesterday, DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng said that the new rule was "unconstitutional and unfair" to those who have built their companies over the years. - Mkini