In 1996 LKY went to Malaysia to visit Dr. Mahathir. Mahathir is
the person who almost single handedly created the Malaysian car
industry. So when LKY came to visit, Dr. M eagerly showed LKY his
Proton Saga factory - "Here we invested $300M, paid Mitsubitshi
$100M for technology transfers, and invested $50M for
branding.
Now we are ready to make money, we can sell each Proton Saga car
for $30,000". LKY laughed and said, "Oh... too much trouble, we
print this certificate called the COE that costs 5 cents a piece,
and sell them to our citizens for $40,000