Speaking to Sunday Star, Chinese national Li, who was handpicked by Geely to turn around Proton, said the national car company must see profits by next year.

“We are working hard to turn around Proton this year at the earliest,” Li said.

It was reported earlier that the government had injected a total of RM15 billion financial assistance for Proton since 1984, but the company continued to bleed in debts.

Li said he is confident his goal with Proton can be achieved because Proton is “on track” to achieve all the internal targets he has set up.

In December last year, Proton recorded a 42% year-on-year sale rise to 12,300 units following the launch of the Proton X70.

Other Proton’s achievements so far include improving the car’s quality fourfold, based on Volvo standards, improving the brand’s public image with the Proton X70 launch, reducing operational costs by 30% and upgrading most sales centres to 3S or 4S service or sales centres.

The PhD holder in management engineering said to achieve the cost reduction target, the number of regional car parts warehouses was reduced to four from 16, saving up to RM33 million per annum.

On Proton’s future plans, Li said to optimise plant capacity, Proton is working towards moving all manufacturing operations, which are currently scattered in various locations, to a factory in Tanjung Malim.

Li said the plan was to invite 17 foreign vendors to set up plants in Tanjung Malim.

“This will bring in investments totalling RM217 million for Malaysia,” he said.

Sales-wise, Li said the company plans to sell 90,000 units this year and he wants to double the number of Proton cars exported from 1,388 last year.

Li said he was placed in a tough spot when 95% of the car dealers were against him when he issued a directive to upgrade their car sales centre into service or sales centres.

However, the results had made these car dealers happy with him.