Kota Kinabalu: The debate over Chinese e-commerce platform Ping Duo Duo (PDD) should not end with calls for restrictions or protectionism, but prompt the government to address why Malaysian businesses are increasingly costly to operate and consumers are turning overseas for cheaper alternatives.
Warisan Vice President and Tanjung Aru Assemblyman Datuk Junz Wong said protecting Malaysian businesses must not come at the expense of consumers already facing rising living costs.
“Do not make Malaysian consumers pay more to compensate for Malaysia’s failure to make Malaysian businesses more competitive.
“At the same time, we must not abandon genuine Malaysian manufacturers and SMEs to unfair competition. We must fix the cost structure, enforce equivalent standards and taxation, and give Malaysian enterprises the conditions to compete,” he said on Saturday.
Wong said the issue went beyond PDD, with local businesses facing rising costs from rent, wages, electricity, logistics, financing, taxation, licensing and regulatory compliance, which ultimately translated into higher prices for consumers.
He urged the Federal Government to conduct a comprehensive review of the cumulative impact of taxation and regulation on businesses, particularly SMEs, including the effects of SST expansion, licensing requirements, logistics costs and overlapping compliance procedures.
“Every new cost imposed somewhere along the supply chain eventually has consequences. Government must continuously examine whether its own policies are unintentionally increasing the cost of doing business and, ultimately, the cost of living,” he said.
Wong said the issue was more urgent in Sabah, where consumers have faced higher prices for decades due to logistics costs, dependence on goods from Peninsular Malaysia and overseas, and limited manufacturing capacity.
He said unreliable water and electricity supply, inadequate infrastructure and high logistics costs also continued to undermine Sabah’s ability to attract investment and develop stronger manufacturing and downstream industries.
“We cannot tell Sabah businesses to become more competitive while they struggle with unreliable electricity, water disruptions and costly logistics.
“Every power or water interruption costs businesses money. Transport inefficiencies, backup generators, water storage, delays and additional logistics all add to the cost, and businesses cannot absorb these costs forever. Eventually, Sabah consumers pay through higher prices,” he stressed.
Wong said this created a vicious cycle in which higher business costs led to higher prices, prompting consumers to seek cheaper alternatives online, while restrictions on those alternatives failed to address the underlying problem.
“That is treating the symptom while leaving the disease untouched,” he said.
Wong said Malaysia must maintain a level playing field in cross-border e-commerce, with foreign platforms and sellers complying with applicable taxation, consumer protection, product safety, certification and anti-counterfeit requirements.
However, he said regulation should ensure fairness and safety rather than become a tool to artificially suppress competition.
“The objective should not be to preserve every existing business model indefinitely. Our bigger objective must be to create more competitive Malaysian manufacturers, stronger SMEs and more Malaysian products that can compete internationally,” he said.
For Sabah, Wong called for an aggressive push to improve electricity and water reliability, roads, ports and logistics while accelerating manufacturing and downstream industries.
“Sabah has oil and gas, palm oil, agriculture, fisheries, timber and other natural resources. Yet too often, we produce or export raw materials and buy back higher-value finished products.
“We need to move from merely producing resources to processing, manufacturing, packaging and exporting more products from Sabah itself,” he said.
Wong urged the Federal and Sabah Governments to jointly formulate a Sabah Cost Competitiveness Strategy to progressively narrow unjustifiable price disparities between Sabah and Peninsular Malaysia, lower the cost of doing business, strengthen logistics and accelerate local manufacturing.
He said the PDD controversy should be treated as a wake-up call rather than an excuse for protectionism.
“If an overseas e-commerce platform can expose such a significant price gap in our market, Government should investigate why that gap exists and fix the underlying causes.
“Malaysia cannot tax, regulate or prohibit its way to competitiveness. Competitiveness comes from affordable energy, efficient logistics, sensible taxation, reliable infrastructure, simpler regulation, productivity, technology and scale.
“Sabah does not need permanent protection from competition. Sabah needs the infrastructure, investment and industrial capacity to compete, while Sabahans deserve the opportunity to enjoy a cost of living that is fair and affordable,” he asserted.
