KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 2 — A federal minister’s call to boycott Chinese vendors for profiteering should not be seen as racist as Malaysia’s minority groups already have an unfair monopoly over the country’s trade and business sector, Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia (Isma) claimed today.

Isma president Abdullah Zaik Abd Rahman said a boycott by Malay consumers is necessary as it is the only advantage the race has against the Chinese and other minority communities.

He added, however, that the federal government should step in and ramp up efforts against profiteering.

“Don’t just label him (Agriculture and Agro-Based Industries Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob) as racist just because he is a minister who defends the Malays.

“He only spoke about how Malays who are the majority can control the price of goods, in a business world controlled by minorities,” Abdullah Zaik told Malay Mail Online via text message.

“Why let one race take over the country’s economy?

“The federal government should develop the capacity for Malay and Bumiputera businesses so that they can compete (with other races),” the Isma leader added.

A DAP lawmaker today branded Ismail Sabri a “racist” after he mooted the boycott, accusing the minister of insulting the intelligence of Malaysians.

The opposition party’s Youth chief Teo Kok Seong said that Ismail Sabri’s remarks were unbecoming of a federal minister, and distracted consumers from the anticipated rise in the prices of goods with the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) this April.

Ismail Sabri had claimed in a Facebook post that Chinese business-owners were raising their prices indiscriminately and a boycott would help in the lowering of the price of goods in the country.

He added that Malay consumers could assist the fight against profiteering by boycotting Chinese businesses.

Ismail has since clarified he was not criticising the entire ethnic community but only “recalcitrant” Chinese traders.

The Umno minister also claimed that traders’ failure to lower prices despite a reduction in fuel costs was a form of sabotage intended to foment disaffection towards the government, which he said was wrongly blamed by consumers for rising cost of living.

“Yes, the statement was not directed at the entire Chinese race, but at Chinese distributors and traders who still refuse to reduce prices even though fuel prices have gone down,” he said in a statement following public uproar over his boycott call.

He explained that his comment on Facebook yesterday was in response to the grumbling by Malay users that price of goods and services have not come down in tandem with pump prices for fuel.

He did not elaborate, however, on how he concluded that Chinese businesses were the only ones that should be boycotted for keeping prices steady.