He said instead of playing the race card, the agriculture and agro-based industries minister should find out the real cause of the problem.
"That's a negative way to try to solve the problem. Find out what is the cause," he said at a press conference at Forest Institute Malaysia (FRIM) today.
"Maybe he didn’t think what he said, if he thinks carefully, he would not say boycott Chinese goods."
Dr Mahathir said the issue was not about Chinese or Malay, as other traders like Malay and Indian also did not reduce the price of goods.
"This is not about Chinese, Malay or anyone else. This is about goods, not only goods sold by Chinese... Indian, Malays also raised price, they don’t bring the price down.
"This is not about Chinese or Malay, this is about oil prices going down, but the price of goods are not going down."
On the assumption that costs would decrease because of the drop in oil prices, Dr Mahathir said transportation, which relied on fuel, was only one part of a business's cost and as such, the actual benefit to consumers would be small.
"Transportation is one of the cost elements in all businesses, maybe about 10%. So if oil prices come down, it only affects 10% of costs, the actual benefit would be very small."
He said it was important for the government to control prices of imported goods as the market could not regulate by itself.
"We have to ensure imports are controlled and price of goods and transportation are regulated a little bit.
"We don't like to regulate the business and markets, but sometimes it is necessary to regulate because the market cannot regulate itself," Dr Mahathir said.
