KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 13 — The Perlis state government is looking to encourage more local traders to take up more business instead of renting space to Thai traders especially in the upcoming Pavillion shopping complex.

Utusan Malaysia reported that Perlis Mentri Besar Mohd Shukri Ramli said that they were concerned over the dominant number of foreign businesses in Padang Besar and wanted to ensure local traders were also running businesses.

He said that the issue was also that local businesses took the easy way out by preferring to rent to premises and business lots to the Thais.

"We hope that they would take the opportunity to run their own business instead of taking the easy way out by renting their spaces out.

"The Thai traders always say that they’re only the workers but the truth is that they run the businesses after renting the space,” he said.

Mohd Shukri said that they were taking the issue seriously and would look at discussing conditions to ensure Padang Besar involve more local traders.

It was previously reported that Thai traders were dominating the Padang Besar trading arcade fore decades now and this affected the local traders.