I think ur missing the point. The whole reason of comparing the original price of a car against another car is to determine its price to value ratio. Ignoring all other factors like import and excise duty, sales tax and so on, we can have a level playing ground in which to relatively judge all car's value.

Say for an example, you have a civic for 120k, and a waja for 60k. This is after tax. Let's say you take away all taxes and both cars arrive at a pretty similar pre-tax price, like 50k. Now, compare the features, build, quality and everything about both cars. The civic has I-vtec DOHC, the waja has I-have-nothing-not-even-DOHC SOHC. The civic has EL meter panel, the waja has normal meter panel. THe civic has lush interior with padded panels and good fabric, the waja has hard plastic. The civic has.... yada yada. Now at the same cost, the civic features far more features than waja.

You can argue that Honda has a much higher volume to offset the cost, but the fact is, Proton's stubborn insistence on producing sub-quality cars without addressing the issues that the rakyat care most about and even refusing to partner with other larger companies to increase their economy of scale, has eventually brought Proton to this realistic doom.

So from here its clear to see that the only way proton can compete is to put taxes on foreign competitors. However, this only guareenties Proton's survival in the local market. Being successful in the local market does nothing to improve the country's economy. It must export cars in order to truly help our economy, and when exported, again the price to value ratio comes to play. So who will buy a waja over a civic if they were to be priced similarly in say, US?

The whole protection thingy is a two edged sword. While it gives a good stepping stone for local companies, it breeds complacency, especially when applied to Malaysia where most of the rakyat are lazy and hedonistic in nature.