National car-maker Perusahaan Otomobil Kedua (Perodua) has pledged to maintain its car prices despite the new power tariff adjustment.

President and chief executive officer said this will be backed up by Perodua's ongoing cost-reduction initiates which started two years ago.

"We will try not to pass the higher production costs to consumers as much as possible, to stay true to our established objective as an affordable car manufacturer," he said at the launch of Perodua's Female Empowerment Movement (FEM) campaign here yesterday.

"We have managed to reduce our operation costs to 30% now and will continue to find ways to achieve a higher percentage. Even if we can't stretch down our car prices any lower, we will make sure that our customers will enjoy other value-added incentives in various forms like free maintenance service for three years, for example," he added.

Meanwhile, Perodua reiterated its commitment to maintain its 30% market share in the compact car segment despite stiff competition in the local automotive scene.

This, he said, will be supported by various promotional campaigns like FEM.

"We have been running various promotional campaigns every year and each campaign had successfully contributed to an average of 20 per cent increase in sales," he said.

Perodua recently launched 60 limited special edition Myvi for its female customers at FEM, a special campaign targeted at women.

"All in all we have included about MYR 4,000 (US$ 124) worth of special features to capture the hearts and minds of Malaysian women. All these without increasing the price of the car," he said.

He added that the special limited variants, costing some MYR 56,000, can only be purchased by FEM members on a first-come-first-served basis.

Currently, a total of 2,000 Perodua customers have registered as members and Perodua president said the company is targeting a membership of 10,000 women by the end of 2014.

"To qualify for this special offer, an applicant must be a woman Perodua car owner and is at least 18 years old," he said, adding that this is to acknowledge the 60% women customers that Perodua currently has.