Perdasama Sad Over "Bumiputera Corner" At Some Hypermarkets

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 20 (Bernama) -- The Malay Businessmen and Industrialists Association of Malaysia (Perdasama) has lamented what it claims to be the practice of some hypermarkets of placing Bumiputera-manufactured products in a back section where there is little customer movement.
Perdasama president Datuk Moehamad Izat Emir described such practice of having a "Bumiputera Corner" as a step backward and not the right thing to do, and said a trader would want his or her product to be placed next to well-known brands and not secluded from the other products in the premises.
"In my opinion, there should be no discrimination of products," he said in his paper on "Perdasama: The Facilitator in Retailing" at the National Conference on Agri-Marketing in Seremban today. The paper was faxed to Bernama here.
Moehamad Izat said hypermarkets chose their own preferred brands for display at the prominent spots.
He said manufacturers would like to have their products and brands prominently displayed at places frequented by customers, especially at the most strategic spots nearer to where they came in or went out.
Moehamad Izat said it was not surprising that retailers were the most concerned as they could not compete with hypermarkets.
He said product manufacturers felt that if hypermarkets could buy their products in large amounts to meet the demand of buyers, it would definitely increase their product manufacturing.
"Yet this prediction is rather untrue as this opportunity has been used by the hypermarkets to buy the products at the lowest price with long-term payback. The manufacturers are finally trapped," he said.
Moehamad Izat also said that, at the same time, producers must also be wary that their products should be attractive, presentable and well-designed to be displayed side-by-side with the well-known brands.
"And this is where Perdasama plays a role. We advise and guide our members to design their products to reflect international standards. Bumiputeras should take up the challenge and be brave enough to get a proper designer to design their products and promotional materials, which include labels, bottles, wrappers, boxes and leaflets which have proper copy writing," he said.

tunku : this is racist. where is nazri and his opposition friends?why don't they comment on this? why there should be bumiputera corner at the hypermarkets? later we will see, every races has their own 'corner' everywhere.