KUALA LUMPUR, June 4 — Malaysia is not suffering from “crony capitalism”, magnate Tan Sri Francis Yeoh said today when clarifying a report on the phenomenon.

The group managing director of YTL Corporation was responding to an article by The Malay Mail Online on his remarks on the subject made during Pemandu’s Global Malaysia Series here yesterday.

“I want to make it very clear that this Malay Mail’s title ‘Crony Capitalism in Malaysia has to go, son of YTL founder says’ has completely misrepresented what I said.

“It automatically presupposes that ‘crony capitalism’ is how things are done in Malaysia. This is far from the truth! In fact, I said I wanted to correct this misperception that has hovered around and used by various political factions for 20 years,” Yeoh said in a statement today.

Yeoh said his response was also meant to dispel the view that he enjoyed the political patronage of former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad in business ventures.